


Crazy, Stupid Love

by Lightbringer34



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adorable Uzumaki, BAMF Uchiha Mikoto, BAMF Uzumaki Kushina, BAMF Women, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, F/M, The Song Remains the Same, but this time the girls get a duet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25794469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbringer34/pseuds/Lightbringer34
Summary: Mikoto Uchiha and Kushina Uzumaki were more than just friends. What they meant to one another would take a lifetime to express, so they did. The shinobi world is cruel, but it is also very beautiful. Sometimes, you can still find that beauty on a battlefield or on a lazy Sunday morning.A companion piece to Redemption in a Worthy World, but can be read separately.
Relationships: Namikaze Minato & Uchiha Mikoto, Namikaze Minato & Uzumaki Kushina, Namikaze Minato/Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Fugaku & Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Mikoto & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Mikoto & Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto/Uzumaki Kushina
Kudos: 15





	1. In the Air Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> If there's one thing that has given me even more grey hairs, it's that Naruto has almost no solid timeline to speak of, let alone a coherent dating system. There will likely be discrepancies or fudged timelines, but it's in service of the story. Let me know if you spot a mistake and I'll do my best to correct it. This story also contains hints for some of the things I plan to do in Redemption/Worthy World and hopefully they're subtle enough not to give the game away. This story is also an opportunity to tear Kishimoto a new one in the name of good female characters. "Can't write women", my rear! 
> 
> From the start, I also enjoy Minato/Kushina, and have no ill feelings either way. That blonde himbo is just going to keep popping up, bless his heart. Fugaku, on the other hand...BOIIIII.
> 
> I wrote most of this yesterday (during four pina coladas) and am about seventy percent done with this one. No editors, we publish by the skin of our teeth!

"Just what the hell are you?"

"I'm your friend!"-Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki, attributed.

Mikoto Uchiha turned ten on February 19th, Year 27 of the Modern Era, the same day Kushina Uzumaki arrived in the Hidden Leaf Village. Later, they would look back at that coincidence as destiny, but for now Mikoto was simply happy to get presents and Kushina was glad she could stop looking over her shoulder. The Whirlpool kunoichi’s arrival in her genin class was greeted by curiosity at a new student, scattered derision at her red hair and Eastern Fire country accent. The jeers, some of which had been friendly, were halted when an enraged, afraid, and lonely Kushina Uzumaki leaped at the nearest bully and set about punching his lights out. Mikoto Uchiha was startled by the new student, but not frightened. Her Uchiha cousins also had famously short tempers, so it wasn’t wholly unusual. She wondered how many friends the new girl would want and if she could be one of them.

As it turned out, Kushina welcomed friends, and after an initial skeptical, scowling period, Mikoto, her cousin Uruchi, and Tsume Inuzuka were soon grouped together at every lunch period. Unlike the others, who had homemade bento boxes or in Tsume’s case, last night’s takeout destined for the microwave, Kushina only ever bought food from the cafeteria. When Uruchi, who’d been held back a year and took time to think things through, asked why the redhead didn’t bring anything from home, Kushina replied that her guardian was far too old to cook and she usually slept late, so cafeteria food it was. After the three girls returned home with concerned looks for their parents, Kushina was overwhelmed with bento boxes the next day, enough for her to subsist for a week, and pointed inquiries made with Manami-Sensei on her behalf. However, she soon learned to cook for both herself and Mito Uzumaki, so the point was rendered moot, but Kushina never forgot. After all, the fastest way to an Uzumaki’s heart had always been through food.

__________________________

The day Kushina discovered she was to be the new jinchuriki for the Nine-Tailed Fox, she skipped school for the first time. Then the next day, she simply never left her room. Then the following three days. The school sent Manami-Sensei with a few more pointed questions and the frail Mito had to answer the door and talk around the topic with the grace the First Hokage’s wife had maintained all her life. This was sufficient to placate the teachers, but not Mikoto Uchiha. She showed up Saturday morning with flowers ripped from someone’s garden two streets over when she realized she had no present to give and no reason to show up at Kushina’s house. Mito accepted the flowers with a small smile and ignored the dirt they were tracking on the floor and directed the small, fierce Uchiha towards Kushina’s room. After polite knocking, then hammering, then a shouted conversation through the door, Kushina came out bawling and more or less tackled Mikoto into a hug. Mito Uzumaki sat in the corner and nursed a cup of tea and thought about the many forms love could take.

Kushina returned to class, made an apology to the instructor, but revealed no details of her new S-Class assignment, because she was still an Uzushio ninja, even if she was in Konoha. That changed six months, seven days, and two hours later, when four bleeding, heavily wounded ninja stumbled to the gates of Konoha and announced that Uzushio had fallen. Three of those four died, either on the operating table, or in their hospital beds, unable to live in a world where such horrible things could happen. Their families, friends, and world had been crushed under rubble, cut in half, or had scattered in every direction as seemingly all of the Mist, including the Second Mizukage and all the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, annihilated the Whirlpool Village. Their gods were dead, or on the run, the royal family missing entirely, and Konoha’s teenaged Hokage was busy with the rest of the Second Shinobi World War on their Western and Northern fronts. Konoha could not help them, but Hiruzen did his best. The Leaf sent scouts to find and protect any refugees from the coast, and the Fire Damiyo sent several scathing letters to the leader of the Land of Water, but Uzushio’s ashes still drifted on the breeze. The Mist was unapologetic, even as they were close-mouthed regarding what prompted such a massive, unprovoked invasion, and the issue festered.

To her credit, Kushina came to class, even though she was glassy-eyed and unresponsive even when someone called her a Tomato. That, more than anything, freaked out the entirety of the class, even the highly concerned Minato Namikaze, who attempted to infiltrate the Hokage Tower five times in the next week. Mikoto, Uruchi, and Tsume closed ranks around their friend and glared daggers at anyone who approached them and answered for her every time the teachers called on Kushina in an attempt to engage the unresponsive child. When they walked home with her in solidarity, the door of the ancient Uzumaki house was surrounded by bouquets of flowers and candles. Mikoto and Tsume exchanged a look and sent Uruchi back to the Uchiha District with notice both of them would likely be home late. Mito was one hundred and twenty-two, but to the children, anyone who had wrinkles was just Old. Tonight, she looked every one of those years, even though her hair still had color and her eyes had not lost their sharpness. The children found her sitting at the worn, scratched wood grain table Hashirama had grown for her on their wedding day next to an empty plate and objects scattered across the table in arm’s reach. A worn, bronze medallion now dimmed by the weight of ages, and the caresses of countless thumbs seeking luck. A woodblock painting of a massive blue oni, with a vast fanged mouth lay propped up against the opposite chair. The shredded remnants of a chrysanthemum funereal wreath covered the rest of the table. No one said anything.

Tsume twitched and bumped into Mikoto, tapping her nose. From her own father, she’d expected to smell alcohol, but she didn’t. The Inuzuka smelled blood and she wasn’t sure of its source. Kushina took a deep breath and waked into the room in small, tentative steps. Mito Uzumaki turned to look at her successor and some silent understanding passed between them. The rest of the evening was spent in cycles of tears, comfort, clumsy commiseration, and storytelling. Kushina had, and might still have six siblings, four brothers and two other sisters, all equally rambunctious and cheery. She refused to believe they were dead and would continue to hold out hope for the rest of her days, even as the greater part of her mind, prodded always by the Kyuubi, would accept they were dead. She told her friends and her guardian about the tricks they would play on their father, a jonin high in the Uzukage’s council, and how the strings of colorful flags fluttered in the breeze coming off Uzushio’s harbor. She told them about running through the market and seeing ores from Lightning Country and rare fish from the Land of Waves, merchants calling out offers and enticements to passers-bye. Mito told them about how Uzushio was a matriarchal society, because the ancestral power of the Holy chakra chains could only manifest in a woman. She told them about the great sealing libraries where clans experimented with chakra, blood, and ink to unlock the language of their universe. Both women told the Konoha children about the smaller clans who would also be missed, the Chochen who could read the tides and see deeper into the ocean than any other dojutsu, the Ikiwana whose bodies were as pliable as rubber and no fall could harm, the Makobose who could spit acid from their fang-filled mouths. It was a wake and a funeral of four people, for all the bodies that were already buried, those that could never be buried, and those who even now were taking their last gasps as hunter-nin caught up with them. The Uchiha delegation arrived as the sun began to dip below the horizon, led by one of the Clan Elders and more importantly, by Mikoto’s mother. They spoke quietly with the elder Uzumaki in the living room as the children strained to hear, but ninja were adept at protecting conversations from the prying ears of children. Mito made assurances and the Uchiha were gracious enough to permit one of the last Uzushio elders a night of remembrance, and it became a sleepover. Just like that, the mood changed and if it felt perhaps a tad forced and artificial, Kushina did not mind. There were pillow forts, popcorn, and stuttering, black and white movies to keep them distracted and allow the wounds of the day to be bandaged by the chatter of young girls, likely jutsu lessons the next week, and silly jokes about ramen. 

Mito was not a naturally vengeful person, but the Uchiha were. Amongst the hushed discussion, the Uchiha Clan head offered a bloody hand, and Mito took it and uttered a curse of her own. It wasn’t a sealing jutsu, it wasn’t one of the many techniques she had learned over the course of her long life, and it skipped over the Kyuubi’s hate-fueled power entirely. The curse, born of both fire and water, was older than both of the clans realized and far more powerful. A year to the day, the Second Mizukage decided to go for a swim and never surfaced while the Seven Ninja Swordsmen were reduced to three at the hands of Might Duy’s Eight Inner Gates. Not a single drop of blood ever hit the living room carpet as Koh Uchiha bowed deeply and departed.

Four months after that unfortunate day, Mikoto and Kushina’s genin class graduated into the waning months of the Second Shinobi World War. They had chunin instructors instead of jonin, and they stuck close to Konoha’s boundary walls with C and D-Rank missions aplenty. Kushina threw herself into the study of sealing with a frantic passion and more than a little hatred in her heart, despite Mito’s warnings and proved a quick study. Soon she was sketching explosive tags with bright blue flame and twice the normal radius, plundering Mito’s failing memory for as many techniques as possible. Mikoto ended up partnered with Masanobo Huyga and Dobuja Sarutobi, both from venerable clans, and both of whom would be dead before they saw their twentieth birthday. But none of them knew this and so they worked diligently as a team in the meantime, developing jutsu, strategies, and combination attacks under their sensei. Even in a war, even as the Third Hokage grew into his renown as the Professor, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Jutsu, life went on.


	2. Burnin' For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love can sneak up on you when you least expect it, even when you're a teenager used to guard duty.

“Love is friendship that has caught fire.”-Ann Landers

The time had finally come, the day Kushina had dreaded more than any other since the beginning of her S-Class Mission as Konoha’s junchuriki-to-be. Mito, along with five other Anbu sworn to silence and the Hokage himself, sealed the Nine-Tails inside Kushina Uzumaki. The ceremony took five muscle-straining, sweat-covered, chakra exhausting, excruciating hours as chakra that burned like fire and boiled like acid poured from Mito’s stomach into her own. Even with the cool, soothing presence of Mito’s chakra chains, and the still unfamiliar, but comforting embrace of her own chains, it hurt like nothing else Kushina had ever experienced. Her voice went hoarse then disappeared entirely as she screamed her throat raw on a stone slab. She dipped in and out of consciousness several times, until all she remembered was the embrace of the golden chains, the sound of chanting, and the pain. It was pain that put all other kinds, past, present, and future, into perspective for the rest of Kushina’s life. It left her raw, jumpy, and touch-adverse for two months, but it steeled her in its fire. After that, nothing could ever truly harm her, because what was physical pain to something like that? In the next World War, the memory of that pain was what allowed Kushina Uzumaki to ignore a deep gash across her back and fight on for two more hours against half a platoon of Mist ninja, wreaking a bloody and terrible vengeance for her clan and her village even as her prisoner taunted her from within its soul-cage. That pain was what allowed her to speak around the claws of that same freed prisoner as it sought to take away the child she had birthed less than an hour before. The Third Hokage had told her that she was brave before they’d started, but privately, Kushina thought that after the Kyuubi was chained inside her, bravery was nothing. After Mito Uzumaki smiled at her, said her goodbyes, and collapsed to the stone floor, her life force finally exhausted, what was Kushina’s bravery to that? As far as she knew, she was now the last living Uzumaki, and she intended to live just as long and as well as Mito.

This conviction was challenged when several years later, a group of Cloud Ninja ground her face into a wooden hallway before knocking her out and spiriting the Uzumaki woman halfway across the Land of Fire. As soon as she’d woken up, she’d fought with her customary fierceness, but she had no sealing paper, and though her chakra chains reduced their number from seven to four, they were grown men and she was still a child. So she began dropping strands of hair, bit by bit, ignoring the blood as she tore clumps from her scalp in desperation. Then the Cloud ninja began to run into traps, and a small blur began slicing tendons and arms with a kunai. Kushina wrenched her way from her captor and nullified the binding seal on her chest with a bloody thumb in time to see him die. That nerd Minato Namikaze, always friendly, but quiet and stuck in the library, had found her trail instead of the dozens of Anbu or jonin on the hunt, and he’d come alone. She was grateful, and bewildered at why a boy who’d barely said twelve words to her would do so much, or go so far for her. Then, when she realized he’d disobeyed orders and run off on his own, she clobbered him and they dragged each other back to the village, towards safety and the familiar comfort of the Uzumaki-etched barrier that surrounded it. Decades later, a chakra inprint would later tell her son this was the moment she fell in love with Minato, because it could have been true, but more importantly, it was a good story. A less complicated story.

______________________________________

Mikoto had her own trials as their generation grew into adolescence, as missions crept closer to the war, as her teammates began to shave, and she began packing tampons for longer missions. There was the embarrassing moment when she’d experimented with kissing her teammate Masanobo after a supply run and neither of them had been very good at it. She didn’t enjoy it as much as she’d been expecting, the way other girls whispered about boys, but put it out of her mind. After all, she’d seen one of the Nara jonin do some very interesting things with his shadow and she resolved to copy the technique if her Sharingan awakened. Her wish was answered a month later as her team was accompanying a tax shipment to the Land of Fire’s capitol. Far, far behind the front lines and deep within Konoha territory, it should have been safe. But the war had meant peacekeeping operations had fallen by the wayside and bandits sprouted like weeds. To an outside eye, three awkward, gangly teenagers, and one flak-jacketed guard wasn’t a threat at all, so of course they attacked. Manosobo Hyuga spotted them at the beginning of his two-minute sweep and suddenly Mikoto was in a fight for her life.

The peasant guards with spears fell like wheat before a scythe as arrows rained down but Dobuja had taken one to his shoulder, right in the meat of the muscle and Mikoto’s eyes widened as she saw he couldn’t raise his arm enough to protect his face. She threw a shuriken and to both of their surprise, the projectiles collided barely six inches from his face, spinning away to the dust. The Sarutobi said something about her eyes, which she thought explained the fuzzy feeling on her face. From what her mother and many cousins had said, she’d expected awakening the Sharingan to be painful, in greater or lesser degrees, but it wasn’t. It felt like when she’d sat for too long and her foot had fallen asleep, except the fuzzy/fizziness was behind her eyes this time and everything was clearer, sharper. But there was no time to focus on that now, because the bandits were still coming closer.

Mikoto jerked her head to avoid a last volley of arrows and sent the remainder of her shuriken in response, hours of practice and her newly glowing eyes telling her how to target their faces, throats, and straps of toughened bamboo armor. Sarutobi was clashing with the two to her right and holding them off despite his injury, so she caught one in a quick genjutsu and gutted him while the man’s brain was still telling him he’d been encased in rock. A naginata tore a red line down her sleeve and left arm and Mikoto let out a very unladylike snarl of anger that made her ancestors smile approvingly. When it was all over, none of them were uninjured, but Mikoto had her Sharingan and nobody she cared for had died. They’d even managed to protect the tax shipment. On paper, a successful B-rank mission, but sixteen-year-old Mikoto still spent an hour trying to get dried blood out from under her fingernails and cursing her own weakness.

__________________________

As it happened, that mission was only two weeks before the Great Villages announced an armistice and a Five Kage Summit to discuss a peace treaty so every genin and parent of genin breathed a sigh of relief. If there were real peace talks, this temporary peace could become permanent and they could stop worrying about their children. For once, the optimists were correct and the Leaf Village took its first halting steps towards peacetime ninja work. When Mikoto was eighteen and Kushina seventeen, they both took the Chunin Exams, held in the Land of Hot Springs as a neutral ground, and passed with flying colors. Though the war was still too recent and shinobi from different villages were more likely to try and kill their counterparts than offer collaboration, both teenagers had expanded their arsenals and worked smoothly with their teams until it came time for individual bouts in front of crowds. Mikoto’s genjutsu-focused fighting style won her few cheers but plenty of approving nods from the ninja in attendance. By contrast, Kushina’s flashy sealing jutsu, colorful explosions, and taijutsu prowess won her great acclaim, save from the Mist ninja, who hissed at her and made signs to ward off evil. Both young women ignored the scattered catcalls, because really, some people just weren’t worth even the effort. Mikoto cheered and clapped for her friend just as loudly as any other Konoha ninja, but when Kushina leaped off her opponent’s shoulders to wrap her thighs around his head and send the Stone nin flying into a tree, she was stunned into silence. _Oh fuck._

It was at this exact moment, when Kushina thrust a fist into the air in victory, that Mikoto Uchiha realized she had a crush on the redhead. That she, in fact, liked girls. Specifically, girls with long red hair, a bright smile despite everything, and a habit of chewing on the end of sealing brushes. So, as the Konoha delegation made the two-week trek back to their village, Mikoto had her teammates make a few semi-discreet inquiries. It was a chance for them to practice those subtle information-gathering skills, obviously, and it was obvious two teenaged boys would be asking about if the attractive redhead was dating anyone. The boys, equally parts amused and excited, played along while Mikoto spent her time staring at the back of Kushina’s new flak jacket and daydreaming. The results were encouraging and it took effort for Mikoto to not let out a very un-Uchiha squeal of excitement. Kushina had been raised first in Uzushio, then by Mito Uzumaki and she’d embraced the now extinct Whirlpool Village’s notion of loving freely with gusto. She’d dated men and women, and the whispers were many and varied, but all agreed she was open, honest, and enthusiastic in matters of the heart and bedchamber. One of the Inuzuka had made the mistake of bragging that he’d slept with Kushina and it had been a race between Tsume and Kushina to see who could hit him first. (They’d settled on a tie when the fool had lost three teeth and gained a black eye) Though the blonde Namikaze kid, who’d also just earned chunin, had a soft spot for her, she’d pointedly never taken him up on any of his offers of lunch, even when it was ramen. Still, Mikoto mentally added _Minato Namikaze, possible romantic rival_ to her slowly developing plan.

Mikoto, by contrast with Kushina’s free spirit, had rarely dated, and none of those had gotten anywhere serious. There had been sex, but it had been more about _having_ sex, than the emotions or desires themselves, like checking off a box so none of the other girls could make her feel inadequate, or to scout out possibly hostile territory. Mikoto Uchiha approached dating like some of the Nara approached the battlefield, with plans, backup plans, previously mapped spots to take a date, a target’s likes and dislikes, with a few genjutsu up her sleeve for good measure. Sometimes she even used them on herself, but nobody needed to know that.

So she spent the entire two-week trip back to Konoha plotting out moves, pickup lines she’d never use, and the best way to approach her longtime friend without being too obvious. The Saturday they’d returned to Konoha, there’d been a low-key but deeply felt celebration at the Uchiha compound with her mother, Uruchi, Tsume, Kushina, her teammates, and several other new Uchiha Chunin celebrating their promotion. As the small party was winding down at sunset, (Uchiha tended to rise and fall with the sun) Kushina and Tsume approached with wicked smiles and the gleam Mikoto knew meant trouble. Tsume’s father had, over some motherly objections, had given her three passes for Uproar, a club that was loud, noisy, and looked the other way for the occasional adventurous teenager as long as they were smart about it. Mikoto was an Uchiha, next to the Leaf Police Force building, and had heard several of her aunts and uncles complaining about the necessary repeated police presence around Uproar, proving its name was well-deserved. Uproar wasn’t just a bar, Uproar was the oldest and most interesting gay bar in Konohagakure, bar none. Her heart lept into her throat and she nodded so fast her head was a blur of black hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember being a teenager and it wasn't great, would not recommend. There's a joke fic in here somewhere about the Sharingan and puberty and complications thereof, but that's just making subtext into text.
> 
> "If you haven't had period cramps ruin your favorite sheets, you haven't known true hatred"-Anonymous Uchiha, attributed.
> 
> Funnily enough, Uproar is the name of an existing gay bar in Washington DC on Florida St, which I had no idea existed when I came up with the idea for a historic LGBTQ+ bar in Konoha with some Stonewall flavor. (Love is a riot!) It shares one or two similarities, but is actually a second-story balcony place IRL.


	3. Cherry Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three morons go get drunk, shit happens.

“I fooled around and fell in love”-Elvin Bishop

___________________________

Uproar was three streets away from the Uchiha Front gate and was fairly typical of the Red Lamp District. A sign and a grafitti-covered stairway led into a basement crowded with shinobi holding drinks and dim purple lighting. It had been dug out and built as a residential basement during the time of the First Hokage, but had swiftly been repurposed by Goren Shimura and Tsuinko Hyuga by the time the Second took the hat. Tsuinko had been using the Byakugan to both scan customers and keep an eye out for the Konoha Police Force while Shimura had connected the bar to the deep network of tunnels and passageways underneath Konoha he’d designed himself, just in case the occupants needed to make a quick getaway. They hadn’t even had a formal liquor license.

The bar existed quietly for a few years, without a name, with little incident besides a few quiet, laughing disappearances when an Uchiha with a Police Force patch came knocking. Then the Second Hokage got wind of it. No one knew how, but he sent in an Anbu force to discreetly take names and ranks, resulting in an uproar that led to the death of one of the Anbu and put nearly a fifth of the active-duty Leaf ninja in the hospital after either participating in or attempting to suppress the riot. To this day, the experienced bartenders glowered at anyone with an Anbu tattoo on their shoulder the first six months they showed up there. Even the sign had been a recent, careful addition. Kushina and Tsume stood in line casually, talking about everything from the Inuzuka’s recent puppy litter and Kudomaru’s proud parentage to a ramen stand Teuichi was thinking about getting started. Mikoto chimed in occasionally, but the greater proportion of her mind was torn between throwing out all her carefully constructed plans and resisting the urge to seize the opportunity Tsume had provided. Miniature Emotional Mikotos charged the well-defended walls of A Logical Plan and gained it twice, each time being thrown back by reinforcements reminding her “Don’t fuck up your friendship Don’t fuck up your friendship! It’s not worth it.”

“But what if it was?” said a clever little thought. “What if she says yes?”

The defenders were driven back to the redoubt of What if it Doesn’t Work Out by the renewed onslaught of hopeful, irrational Mikotos.

The clever little thought wondered what Kushina’s lips would feel like.

“-Ikoto, hey, earth to Uchiha!” Mikoto was brought back to reality by the redhead she very much wanted to see and turned even paler in fright, but Kushina didn’t notice. “Here’s your ticket, Tsume’s got us in, so let’s stick together, ‘kay?” The Uchiha nodded, not trusting herself to speak as the last holdouts of A Rational Plan were overrun. She took the ticket and noticed two things. First, that Kushina was equally nervous as she was and hid it behind her smile, and second, that her friend’s hands were surprisingly warm.

When the three girls finally shouldered their way through the crowd to the bar and the aging but impassive Hyuga who manned it, they ordered off the chalk board above him and forked over both IDs, (genjutsu’ed to add a few years) and money (hideous pricing, but expected). Two Liquid Courages, and unsurprisingly a Howling Wolf for Tsume. They migrated over to the wall, where they leaned as the girls took in the atmosphere of the bar. Only the one exit clearly marked, but Mikoto had heard enough from her relatives that she could see slight outlines in the brickwork which hinted at secret exits. She gestured at one with her drink, took a large sip, and told her friends the story of Uncle Kozuden Uchiha who’d chased a few patrons into the underlevels of Konoha only to become hopelessly lost and stumble back out to daybreak clear on the other side of the village. They crowd-watched for twenty minutes, noting that there was an equal mix of men and women in the basement, and any wandering hands appeared entirely welcome. Mikoto resisted the urge to take another gulp of Liquid Courage and idly commented on the attractiveness of a kunoichi six deep in the crowd with auburn hair under the multicolored lights above them that spun and flashed. To her eternal gratitude, Tsume and Kushina didn’t react and simply offered their own ideas on the difference between attractive, cute, and hot. It didn’t seem to bother Tsume that she was now the only self-confessed straight woman in their group and the Inuzuka drained her drink and moved off into the crowd with a sharp grin. Was-was this a setup? Was Tsume Inuzuka, tomboy and wild woman extraordinare, playing matchmaker with her friends?

Mikoto was about to dissect the idea in detail, but the music changed to something faster, with more drums, a wicked guitar, and suddenly Kushina was dragging her into the crowd. She knew how to dance, she wasn’t an idiot, but in a crowd, with alcohol burning a familiar fire in her stomach, Mikoto Uchiha finally gave in and danced with wild abandon. It was perfect.

“Down the streets I'm the girl next door.  
I'm the fox you've been waiting for.

Hello, daddy. Hello, mom.  
I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!  
Hello world! I'm your wild girl.  
I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!”

Kushina was singing the lyrics in her face, laughing at some private joke and they fit so perfectly Mikoto sang right along with her, even as she stumbled over the worlds. She felt people bumping into her as they danced or simply leaped up in down, and suddenly, she turned and hip-checked Kushina gently, causing the other woman to stumble slightly and look at her with surprise. For an instant, Mikoto knew she’d made a mistake, that the alcohol was making her uncharacteristically aggressive, then Kushina winked at her and returned the favor, making the Uchiha stumble and giggle as well. They danced together for the rest of the song, then the next one, until they were sweating and Mikoto begged for a reprieve. Kushina positively sashayed back to their drinks with a motion that had to be deliberate and Mikoto trailed after her, grinning like an absolute fool.

They found Tsume protecting their drinks, which she’d obligingly covered with napkins and picking her teeth with a little wood and paper umbrella she’d stolen from someone’s empty glass. Soon enough they settled into a rhythm, alternating between the unfairly expensive mixed drinks and glasses of water, working their way across the menu in between dances. Tsume just became more brash as she drank and bared her fangs in a challenging smile more often, and Mikoto found everything twice as funny. To their annoyance, Kushina powered through five drinks and showed no visible change beyond flushed cheeks and her ever-present grin, which she attributed to the Uzumaki’s famous longevity. The other girls just thought it was unfair.

Regardless, they all stumbled out of the bar at 2:43 in the morning laughing about the massive Akimichi who was carrying a much smaller man down the street bridal-style, singing a drinking song and deeply intoxicated. Mikoto vaguely recognized the Uchiha Policeman leaning against the wall and ducked her head behind Kushina to avoid his gaze successfully. This of course, brought her closer to the redhead, who flung an arm around her friend and one around Tsume for good measure, cheering about what an excellent idea this was. This close, Mikoto could feel the heat rolling off Kushina’s body as their bodies climbed down from the excitement Uproar had provided and staving off the early morning cold of Konoha’s streets. Nothing close to winter, of course, but with sweat drying across her spine, Mikoto shivered. She couldn’t help it, it was a perfectly natural reaction. Kushina pouted. “Aww, is the scary Uchiha chunin afraid of the dark? No worries my lady, I’ll protect you!” She straightened and brandished an imaginary kunai. “No one will harm this fair maiden-“

Mikoto giggled some more and shoved against Kushina, sending the group careening across the street as three alcohol-soaked brains attempted to compensate for the shift in momentum. That started a laughing chase through the streets towards Kushina’s house that soon escalated to rooftops and alleyways and caused more than one light to flicker on inside apartments. Tsume peeled off with a wave and a chuckle and soon it was just the two of them soaring across rooftops. Mikoto’s mind was turning towards the question of how they would say goodnight when Kushina suddenly groaned and clutched her stomach in midair, skidding into a crouch next to some TV antenna. Her friend was there in an instant.

“Kushina, what’s wrong?”

The redhead hunched even further over and cursed as Mikoto gathered her long red hair in preparation to the inevitable wave of vomit that never came. They waited several minutes as Kushina shook and said nothing while Mikoto’s mind whirled with questions. Had someone messed with their drinks, even when they’d been so careful? Was it alcohol poisoning? Cramps?

Kushina mutely shook her head at each of these questions and finally let out an explosive breath as she remembered to breathe regularly. “Must’ve been something I ate,” she lied through gritted teeth. “Help me sit on something, Miko.”

Ignoring the nickname for now, Mikoto dragged her friend over to a nameless block of concrete and set the Uzumaki’s back against it, absently rubbing circles into the red Uzushio swirl on her flak jacket Kushina had been proudly appreciating earlier in the night. “Anything I can do?” Her eyes scanned the environment, glowing red to compensate for the dim streetlights. “There’s a corner store across the street, I could get you water or chocolate or-“

Kushina reached out and took her hand and the words died on Mikoto’s lips. The redhead was smiling up at her with surprising tenderness. “Just stay with me, for now, ok? Just-“ , she doubled over again as a fresh wave of pain hit her and her face ducked down as it contorted into a snarl. “Damn you, you don’t get to do this! Not now!” she hissed to herself.

Mikoto’s concern was rising rapidly and she made to rise, to call for the nearest Uchiha, to grab something from the store, to do anything, but Kushina’s grip tightened to vice strength and even though it was starting to hurt, Mikoto didn’t let go either and refused to let a flicker of pain onto her face. She found herself talking again, about the Uchiha Clan’s large library of stolen jutsu, from foreign and friendly ninja alike, each technique consigned to ink and parchment, ready for when an Uchiha with the appropriate chakra nature and a specific need required an ace in the hole. She’d only gained access to it that very same day, with her promotion to chunin and the formation of the second tomoe of her Sharingan at some point in the chunin exams. She hadn’t noticed until her mother pointed it out to her at their party. Kushina scoffed. “Really, I could have told you that one. Those dumb ol’ eyes of yours sure are useful, but sometimes you miss real obvious stuff, y’know?”

Mikoto was about to say something defending her clan until she caught the double meaning and her train of thought went careening off the tracks. They were sitting alone on a rooftop, holding hands, and mysterious pain or not, the subject could no longer be avoided. She absently noted how dry her mouth was and swallowed. “I-I guess so. You know, I think Tsume came up with this whole night because she suspected-“

Mikoto wasn’t sure what the brunette had suspected, but Kushina finished the thought for her. “That I had a crush on you? Yeah. I’ve never been the most subtle person.”

“Wha-No, she thought I had a crush on you!”

Kushina’s face was a silent challenge, but she made it verbal anyway. “So, do ya?”

The moment hung in the air and Mikoto’s mind split down the middle. _Don’t fuck up your friendship_ was at war again with _Of course I do,_ and Mikoto didn’t know which one she wanted to win. So she started babbling.

“Well, remember during the finals of the chunin exams, when you flipped that guy across the arena and the judges awarded you points for taijutsu but took points away for subtlety? Well I just thought it was totally unfair and the points allocation system really needs to change and oh my gods you were so hot and-“

Mikoto felt a hand slip through her hair and suddenly Kushina was kissing her as the universe fell away along with all of her higher mental functions. There was passion in that kiss, forceful, but not aggressively so. The last boy Mikoto had kissed tried to do something complicated with his tongue, but there was none of that. Just a kiss, made from the heart, as a short statement that said nothing at all while somehow saying everything worth knowing.

 _Deep inside its prison, the Nine-Tailed Fox howled in frustration as his escape attempt failed. The golden chains that bound him glowed brighter than before with new light and dragged him back to the heart of the seal, to burn in his own hatred and failure._ Kushina felt the pain disappear like mist upon the rising of the sun and smiled grinned into the kiss. Mito had been right after all about love, and it felt fantastic.

The girls broke apart, both equally speechless for several minutes. Mikoto found her voice first. “Wow,” she said in a dazed sort of way. “That was…nice.”

Kushina smiled and felt a knot of apprehension uncoil itself in her stomach. Her actual stomach, not the complicated metaphysical seal branded on her skin that still burned with the fox’s chakra. “Good to know for next time then. Thanks!” She realized she was still clutching Mikoto’s hand in a vice grip and let go instantly, apologizing all the while. Mikoto shrugged the apology off, wearing an adorable little grin that made Kushina want to kiss her all over again.

“Will there be a next time?” The Uchiha’s voice wasn’t hostile, just curious. Perhaps hopeful if she listened, so Kushina kept going, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “There can be, if you want. Either way, it’s cool.”

“Of course I do, you goofball!” Mikoto squeezed Kushina’s hand and gave her that grin.

“Well, I think that calls for another kiss.”

“You keep having these good ideas.”

An hour later Mikoto slid through her window and collapsed into bed and even though it was the middle of the night and she was severely dehydrated, the Uchiha felt like she could conquer the world. On opposite sides of the village, both women fell asleep with smiles on their face. The next day Tsume Inuzuka picked up the phone despite her hangover and proceeded to be insufferably smug the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a YouTube playlist going and the Guardians of the Galaxy ost came up, totally unprompted which has Cherry Bomb. I swear I didn’t plan this and I wasn’t going to add song lyrics to a fic, but the moment wrote itself and I couldn’t bring myself to say no. “Get down ladies you’ve got nothing to lose” I mean, c’mon. It fits Kushina's personality to a T, there's even a line about a fox.
> 
> Some of this fic is drawing from personal experiences, especially the Tailed Beast sealed into my stomach. It's called depression and it sucks. This pandemic had me putting on pounds and taking them off again is a process. Let the Boruto version of Anko be a lesson about adjusting eating habits as you get older. They did her so dirty, seriously.


	4. Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikoto goes on a fishing expedition among her family and at the library. There are dates.

“Love is friendship which has caught fire.”-Unattributed Uchiha poet.

Once her brain caught up to her heart, Mikoto Uchiha started to plan again. She sketched out Kushina’s basic personality as well as her own, their likes and dislikes, possible points of friction and concluded that for once, Kushina knew what she was doing. As far as Mikoto could see, there were no immediate stumbling blocks for their relationship, aside from parental and Clan disapproval, but it wasn’t their business anyway. She thought about walking down the street holding Kushina’s hand until a realization rudely interrupted that daydream. Besides vague derogatory comments from some of her more aggressive relations on the Uchiha Police Force and the few stories about Uproar, she knew almost nothing about what Konoha at large thought about gay shinobi. So she did what every intelligent, research-oriented, strategist has done since the invention of the written word: she went to the library.

Well, the library was on her list, but first, a scouting mission to get the lay of the land. Resolutely ignoring the pounding headache she was nursing in favor of a pair of sunglasses and a cup of green tea, she saw her mother waiting patiently at the table with a bowl of soup for her. “So, how was your night?”

Seemingly normal question, resolutely ignore that knowing look at all costs, don’t commit anything this early in the campaign. Mikoto knew that despite the application of a comb, a shower, and some makeup, she did in fact look like a young woman who’d spent a night on the town. “Fine, I got dragged by Tsume and Kushina-san to some bar I never caught the name of. It was a nice change of pace, even if it was loud.”

Her mother smiled and pushed the soup toward her. “Eat, Mikoto, it’s freshwater clams, best thing for a hangover.”

Some of her daughter’s surprise must’ve shown on her face, because she chuckled. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. And I’m not going to bite your head off, especially because I know you’re usually the sensible one in that group. As long as you’re safe, that’s what’s most important.”

Mikoto sipped at the soup as she allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief as her mother kept going. “Really, I was surprised it took this long for those two to drag you out for a night on the town, laws or no. Anything unexpected, good or bad?”

The enemy general had set the terms of engagement and was not sending out scouts of her own. Mikoto could work with this, and it didn’t require her to lie to her mother directly. She shrugged, projecting an air of nonchalance. “Like I said, we had fun. Nobody tried anything funny, we just danced mostly. Kushina got a stomachache, so I walked her home to be safe. I was actually going to head out to the library today, it gave me an idea for my genjutsu, making people feel symptoms that aren’t horrible on their own, but layering several together to incapacitate-“

She stopped, aware she was building up steam about a personal project the other woman remained politely interested in, but no experience with. “Sorry, it’s just genjutsu stuff. I won’t bore you.”

Her mother nodded, well aware the subject was outside her own specialty. Retired or not, she’d been a ninjutsu user through and through. “Just make sure you finish that soup before you go, a mother worries you know.”

Despite herself, Mikoto’s heart melted just a bit. She had no idea if her mother bought it, but she’d been offered a soup truce, so she was going to take it. Right after this last offensive.

“Well-“ she said hesitantly, “there was one other thing I wanted to ask.” Her eyes were focused on the soup, unwilling to meet her mother’s. “Last night Kushina mentioned dating boys was getting boring, so she thought she’d try dating girls for a change. I wasn’t sure how to react, so do you have any advice?”

She looked up at a clatter, but her mother was just starting the dishes, face turned towards the window. “Well, Kushina certainly does seem like the type of person to do that, such a spirited girl. It’s unusual, and she’ll get some nasty comments if she’s careless and a little too familiar in public, but she should be fine. Your friend’s always been such a tough girl, she might just need a little extra support once in a while. I just hope she knows what she’s getting into, that it’s not some passing fancy.” Her mother’s head swiveled around, Sharingan suddenly active. “She didn’t make a pass at you, did she?”

They said the Sharingan could read the micro-tremors of someone’s face to detect lies, so the solution was to phrase her answer in a way that wasn’t a lie. Neither of them had “made a pass” at each other, it had just…happened. So she honestly answered no and her mother breathed out a sigh of relief. “Well, at least the girl has some sense the Sage gave her. Some of Those people start by messing with their friends and that never ends well, so I’m glad Kushina’s one of the smart ones.”

Mikoto didn’t know how to feel about any of that, so she shoved all those feelings down as she drained the last of her soup. “Thanks Mom, I’ll keep that in mind. The advice and the soup.”

She mentally kicked herself and fled while her mother was trapped by sudsy hands and dirty dishes.

_________________________________

After more-or-less hiding in the Konoha Library instead of training, Mikoto found she agreed with some of her mother’s assessment. Konoha wasn’t as bad as Stone, where they threw the men into the rocky desert and ostracized women as home-wreakers, but it wasn’t free-wheeling, live-and-let-live Sand either. Hashirama’s prominent and early relationship with Madara Uchiha, followed by his marriage to Mito Uzumaki, meant the Leaf Village was from the beginning more open than others. Madara’s declaration of war and their final climactic battle at the Valley of the End was derided by some opinionated historians as a jilted lover’s quarrel while others pointed to the genuine ideological differences that had been papered over by the founding of the Hidden Village System. His wife and successor/brother Tobirama enshrined marriage rights as inviolate and unalterable by either Clan or Hokage, and the following decades had enforced that rule. Some of the Clans had gone on record in Council meetings protesting against one of their members entering into what they termed a “sub-optimal” match which by necessity meant biological children were less likely to swell the ranks of the Clan. However, if the couples were set on marriage, there was very little the Clan could officially do. Mikoto searched for any mention of the Uchiha Clan’s policy on women who loved other women, publicly stated or otherwise with the kind of frantic effort usually reserved for her genjutsu development and the results were…odd. Fushisho Uchiha, the fourth Uchiha Clan Head, had married Jozu Umino to some protest, but as he ruled long and well, the number of complaints dissipated. Indeed, there were regular marriages between same-sex couples, many of whom adopted orphaned Uchiha or took in their spouse’s children for decades up until recently. Very recently, in fact. Several years ago, when Mikoto had been barely a child and just before the Second Great Ninja War had begun, the number of same-sex marriages slowly began to decline. Perhaps the Clan Scrolls, or a suitable copy would have more to say on the subject, because Mikoto knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in all the Hells she was asking the Uchiha Elders or the Clan Head, Fugaku Uchiha’s mother.

That woman was terrifying, even to a seventeen-year old chunin. Ostensibly the head of the Uchiha Police Force, she treated her own family (extended and otherwise) as members of her personal army and only the recent war had stopped the Hokage from going beyond stern and public reprimands that would’ve cowed anyone else. Mikoto shivered and returned the library scrolls to their shelves, rather than the shelving cart. Best to be careful.

The following week saw Kushina’s enthusiastic next meeting with Mikoto, the latter’s cautious explanation of the possible difficulties that could occur and the former’s brash dismissal of any “pea-brained morons who think they have any say in who we love”. Kushina introduced the older teenager to The White Lily, a restaurant that catered exclusively to people who, like Mikoto, were trying to figure out their own desires, where privacy was respected. Kushina was a regular patron and had in fact been introduced to the restaurant by Mito Uzumaki when the redhead had questions of her own, years and years ago. That led into a discussion of how amazing her guardian figure had been living through the reigns of Three Hokage, and they chatted in that vein for the rest of the afternoon. As first dates went, Mikoto thought it had gone well.

The second date was accidental, as they ran into one another shopping for shinobi tools and made it an event. Mikoto balked at first, because her mother was right there, but Kushina gave the older woman a winning smile and held Mikoto’s hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, and time passed without incident. Mikoto comforted herself with plausible deniability, wishing she’d never even brought the subject up in the first place. Why couldn’t she have used any other classmate as an excuse, why did she have to mention Kushina, and put her mother on guard? Because she could feel her mother’s Sharingan burning into the back of her neck in a way she was eighty percent sure wasn’t a low-grade fire jutsu. Not in the middle of a sealing paper shop. She distracted all three of them by bringing up Minato’s latest experiment with the Second Hokage’s teleportation jutsu, which, for clothing-related reasons, now had his teammates calling him the Yellow Flash. That got a laugh out of her mother and Kushina both, and seemed to soften the space between them, so Mikoto patted herself on the back for another deft bit of diplomacy. Well, Kushina’s was more of a cackle of dark glee, but it was the thought that counted.

It was on their third date to see a movie about Princess Yue the Moon Spirit that Mikoto knew this was going to be something new. Something different from her previous awkward dates and aborted relationships. Something real, and good.

Because this was Kushina, the Uchiha came to this realization as the redhead was midway through their post-movie dinner, mouth stuffed with noodles. She didn’t know where the idea came from, perhaps the same clever little thought that had started this entire relationship in the first place. It wasn’t a sweeping realization of romantic love the way their movie had shown it, but instead something quiet and warm. _I am happier around her and she is happier around me. Maybe we could keep doing this._ Then Kushina caught her staring and pretended she was going to shove Mikoto’s face into her abandoned udon bowl. The laughter and tickling that ensued just cemented her certainty this was the right decision. After that, with any doubts either of them had now gone, Kushina proceeded to sweep the shorter Uchiha off her feet in all the ways that mattered.

As chunin, they could afford to go to expensive restaurants, but at this point, Kushina had become something of a miracle worker in the kitchen, so she often cooked for them both, chatting the entire time. After all, the principals of sealing and cooking were quite similar in their focus on proper preparation and specific measurements, that also allowed the truly skilled, which now included Kushina, to improvise at will. In the end, each dinner lasted longer and it became harder and harder for both of them to part at the door to Kushina’s apartment. Soon enough, they were skipping the door and falling back into Kushina’s bed, awkward, giggly, and eventually loving. What Mikoto lacked in experience, she quickly made up for with enthusiasm and Kushina proved a capable teacher. When Mikoto activated the Sharingan the next morning to capture a permanent memory of her lover’s sleepy face, neither noticed the third and final tomoe of the Sharingan manifest. Mikoto’s mother made a few barbed comments, and they lodged deep, but Mikoto armored herself in Kushina’s fierce honest love, and moved out within the month.

Missions were low-risk, regular, and time flew by. Soon enough they were talking about pet names on a lazy winter morning. Mikoto was quickly dubbed “Little Bird” now that she’d finally perfected, not stolen, shadowy chakra wings that gave her the moniker of “Raven-Winged” and privately she liked Kushina’s nickname better. As the redhead did something that made Mikoto gasp and swat at her, now it was the Uchiha’s turn to grin. “How about you be Fluffy Fox?” She buried her face in an area that was indeed dangerously fluffy with hair and soon had Konoha’s jinchuriki screaming in a mixture of laughter and pleasure. Later, Kushina raised an eyebrow and warned Mikoto to stick with “Kushi” or the Uchiha would be waking up with a seal tattooed on her neck that made her hair permanently hot pink. For once, Mikoto was happy to surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mikoto’s mom isn’t a fool, and she does want her daughter to be happy, but sometimes parents simply don’t have the good advice they should be giving and have to work it out on their own. Her mom’s a mix of worry, well-meaning advice, and hurtful stereotypes, but she’s genuinely trying here. I can speak from experience. When I came out to my mom as Bisexual, she asked if this was because I hadn't been getting dates and I was just fooling myself. Still working through the self-doubt on that one, whew.
> 
> The US has made great strides in my lifetime towards acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, but we've still got a long way to go. No fight worth fighting is ever easy, or accomplished in one lifetime. 
> 
> Also, yes, I'm going to be naming all these chapters after the songs I listened to while I wrote, some of them fit too well. Consider it a bonus, though tastes may vary.


	5. Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Turn and Face the Strain)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foxy secrets and domestic bliss, things are going well. There's just the small matter of a Ninja War.

"Life never gives you enough time to do all the nothing you want."-Calvin and Hobbes

When Mikoto turned twenty and it was obvious their relationship was going to become a long-term endeavor, Kushina told her about the Nine-Tails. She’d wrestled with the idea for several months, unusually indecisive for the normally blunt and decisive kunoichi, but the stakes were quite a bit bigger. This was, after all, an S-Class secret that had been kept only by the anonymous Anbu who’d participated in the sealing, who were likely dead, Mito, who was definitely dead, and the Hokage, who was middle-aged and with a young son by now. So after the small party, cake, and guests had left, Kushina sat Mikoto down and told her the whole truth, as nervous as the Uchiha had ever seen her. It certainly explained some things. Like her stomach pains unrelated to menustral cramps that cropped up rarely, but always at the most inconvenient times, and quite debilitating. Like the way when she got truly angry, her hair would wave in the air behind her with the suggestion of tails. Like her deep knowledge and passion for sealing jutsu, and the golden chakra chains Mikoto had never heard anyone ever could use in Konoha. The frequent references to an annoying downstairs neighbor when Mikoto had slept there more nights than not and never heard a peep. Mikoto realized the silence had dragged on when she noticed Kushina shaking like a leaf in the wind and reached out to calm her down. “It’s a great deal to take in.”

“Hmf, try absorbing all of that when you’re twelve, y’know?”

Mikoto let out a small sigh and extended a slender hand to curl around Kushina’s shoulder. Her lover enjoyed casual physical touch, and even the smallest gesture could help. “You said you have to hold it in, does it…think? Or is it just a beast?”

“It curses at me and at you a lot if that counts. Not that it’s watching all the time,” she added, seeing the look of disgust on Mikoto’s face. “It sleeps mostly and waits until it thinks I’ll be distracted or vulnerable enough to chance a jailbreak. It’s got a surprisingly large number of Uchiha it wants to kill.”

“I thought I was supposed to be comforting you,” said Mikoto dryly. “You’re being awfully serious about this, which is normally my job. It’s weird.”

Kushina tossed a strand of hair back over her shoulder. “My life’s been weird since Day One, Little Bird. You knew that when you signed up for all of this.” She indicated herself with a wave of a hand.

Mikoto smiled slightly and made to tickle the redhead. “And you have no idea how grateful I am that you’ve let me have all of this.”

The conversation receded into the background, but neither kunoichi forgot it. Kushina remembered the caution and trust Mikoto had shown, while her girlfriend remembered the first time Kushina had failed to hide her fear. It was the first big potential stumbling block in their relationship and Mikoto had handled it like a champ. The rest of the month passed with contentment and joy, but it was not to last.

Future scholars, particularly Sarada Uchiha and Boruto Uzumaki’s paper on “Quantum Entanglement Tendencies Passed Down Bloodline Limits” would debate the specifics, but Fate had made its mission to shit in the dinners of both Uchiha and Uzumaki alike, and at this point, it was Mikoto and Kushina’s turns once again. Sakumo Hatake’s S-Rank, diplomatically sensitive mission along the Sand/Stone border detonated with explosive force, and he chose to rescue his teammates over completing the mission. Within the week, Stone had declared the start of the Third Great Ninja War.

______________________________________

At this point both women were consummate professionals, ninja through and through, so they weren’t surprised when war broke out. They checked the integrity of flak armor weave, bought enough shuriken to fill two kitchen drawers, and ravaged the sealing paper shop after leaving a sizeable tip for the dazed-looking man running it. They had memories of the Second War, and were confident the Third Hokage could carry them through this one, so they were also not unduly worried. Mikoto’s plans to buy a cat were shelved permanently when they received their mission postings. There were no front lines yet, just heavily armed clashes along the Western border of the Land of Fire and throughout both the Land of Grass and Tea Country the latter of which was Fire Country in all but name. They were lucky enough to be posted to the same battalion, and even the same row of tents, so a few food-based bribes and a “lucky” kunai that had seen her through the Second War allowed Mikoto to move into Kushina’s tent as her new bunkmate. The duty chunin proved only slightly harder for Mikoto to bribe and while it may have taken a week and a half’s worth of pay out of her account, smelling Kushina’s scent of honeysuckle and sealing ink was worth every cent. The Uzumaki made sure to show her appreciation in those early days when missions were intermittent and the Great Nations were mobilizing the greater part of their military forces.

War was not always harsh combat conditions, even as the Western Front became the Western and Northern Front and the smaller nations chose sides with what shinobi they could spare. Mikoto was frequently dragged into the Planning Tent as her political analysis proved to be both well-founded and wide-ranging while Kushina, despite the objections of several shinobi, took to the front line and became a one-woman wreaking ball of Water, Fire, and sealing jutsu for nearly any situation. Still, both Uchiha and Uzumaki had reputations as powerful front-line fighters and the couple proved their worth several dozen times over, earning a field promotion to jonin before the month was out. Ninja were dying, true, but they were holding their own. The Leaf’s borders remained stable. If you listened, you could hear a few hopeful chunin or genin around fires saying this war would be short and over within the year. The jonin and the Hokage knew better.

A month later, a vast Iwakagure offensive nearly overran their camp and pushed deep into the Land of Fire, burning crops, villages, and turning miles of forest into a barren landscape of rock spikes and canyons. Mikoto’s mother died in the panicked retreat, protecting a terrified chunin from a rain of rock shards the size of pebbles, but with the density of boulders. The funeral was difficult, and not just because it was less than a dozen Uchiha, including Mikoto, clustered around a small pyre at the edge of the new Konoha BaseCamp. She didn’t know how to feel about her mother, and hadn’t for quite some time. They’d loved each other, that was obvious from how her mother had raised her on her own after her husband had taken a senbon needle to the throat in the Second Shinobi War, but the woman still had difficulty with Kushina. The initial worry and caution had turned to wariness and subtle hostility, then, as Mikoto made it clear this wasn’t because she couldn’t find a good boy, and that Kushina had not seduced her away from proper manners, turned into a mutual but painful hostility that made living at home so awkward as to be physically painful. After she’d moved into Kushina’s apartment full-time, her mother had reached out several times and each time, Mikoto had shown up to the lunch or afternoon tea with hope in her heart and love so willing to be expressed it made her feel fragile. But both times, their discussions gradually devolved into hissed arguments in public or raised voices at her old home.

Her mother’s ingrained homophobia was just the first of a long line of tripwires that both of them kept blundering into and what made the entire experience worse was that Mikoto realized her mother was genuinely trying to understand and accept her daughter’s new life. Kushina’s open, gregarious, cheerful personality had never fit smoothly with the rest of the Uchiha Clan, who had a tendency to be grim, succinct, and to the point. However, both groups harbored deeply felt emotions and were perfectly willing to come to blows to defend them. When Kushina had been seven and punched an Uchiha boy out for saying she couldn’t be Hokage, it had been cute, a sign of spunk. When she was nineteen and a woman grown with a chunin flak jacket, it was a sign of combativeness and willingness to harm comrades of the Leaf. Never mind that the man had been a twenty-two-year-old genin writing checks his mouth couldn’t cash. Kushina’s casual comment that she was curious about a sealing jutsu to preserve dojutsu convinced several Uchiha she was planning to steal their Sharingan, when she’d only been idly musing on the prospect. Incident after incident and while a lesser woman might have given up, Mikoto knew both her mother and her girlfriend were inching closer every time they met and it had been only a matter of time and effort. Kushina kept at it because she saw Mikoto’s naked hope and wanted more than anything to make her happy. Mikoto’s mother kept at it because she loved her daughter as fully and reliably as the sun rose in the East.

And now she was dead. Her mother was dead and curled into carbon smoke and bone shards, so there was no reconciliation. No blessing, no understanding, just the pain of conversations ended midway through and pleas left forever unsaid. Mikoto bared her teeth like she’d seen Kushina or Tsume do a thousand times and more and swore vengeance on the Stone shinobi who had done this. Turns out those Old Uchiha knew what they were talking about.

Mikoto knew she wasn’t ok, no matter what she said to Kushina. Her temper was shorter, she’d snapped at a genin who’d brought her the topographical map of Hidden Grass instead of Hidden Rain and found herself biting off spurts of fire when she found the time to reach a training ground. Kushi was giving her space to work this out, being patient and listening, which was not in her nature and Mikoto loved her all the more for that. She didn’t want the anger that burned like an ember in her soul to hurt the one person who had never deserved it. She dreaded the day it did. So Mikoto Uchiha poured her energy into the war, where Konoha was very much now on the back foot and entering its second year. Their birthdays had been in there somewhere hadn’t they? She couldn’t remember if they’d done anything special, beyond clandestine sex, but a lot of ninja were doing that so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. She felt a sharp pang in her heart as she realized she might be falling out of love and shook her head fiercely. They meant too much to each other for that to happen. She would say something to Kushi tonight, an apology and a confession so-

“Mikoto? Uchiha-san?”

She was standing in front of a briefing board, outlining a multi-squad approach to stealing from Stone supply convoys and she’d stopped talking. A cautious chunin was addressing her, so she recovered well and shoved the moment of shame into the box in the back of her mind. “Apologies, Aburame-san, my mind went ahead of me.”

The briefing, and the war, continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My scattered notes say that the Second Great Ninja War was short, while the Third was quite a bit longer. I have seven years written down, but like much of the chronology of Naruto, I'm working backwards from the manga. 
> 
> Konoha Base Camp doesn't roll off the tongue, but it's better than "Konoha FOB".
> 
> I know in many cultures children live in their parent’s homes for a long time, practically until they’re married and the American experience of “Live alone after 18” is out of the ordinary. Plus, it’s easy to write a parent as a homophobe, instead a growing distance until neither party can relate to the other is more realistic and painful. If her mom lived, they could have worked things out, but my username is not representative of the stories I write. It's all about the tragedy and pining folks. For now, let's watch a great couple feed Stone Ninja their own butts.


	6. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every couple has their first fight at some point.

As it turned out, her Shadow Wing Jutsu was particularly useful, especially in wide open areas such as the small nations away from Konoha’s forests. Mikoto made dozens of diving runs in the Land of Grass, sending shadow and kunai filled showers of death down to impact among enemy shinobi. Some of the other Uchiha had a sense of grim satisfaction when recounting the death of enemy shinobi, and there was some of that, Mikoto reflected. Mostly, she just felt pity and sorrow. Keeping her comrades alive meant eliminating the enemy’s ability to fight, which occurred quickest when they were dead. It gave her no joy, but there it was. By contrast, Kushina smiled as she fought, no matter if it was sealing a Stone Chunin into paralysis so she could sever his arteries, or scything through twelve genin, some of them painfully young. That part of Kushina scared her, but at the same time, she remembered the nights huddled together by lamplight in their tent, when Kushina’s hands shook and she sobbed into Mikoto’s shoulder. They had pushed back to Konoha’s borders and a bit beyond, they were winning. So why did it feel like they were all losing?

It might have been Sakumo’s suicide, which had been sudden and inspired shock in even the most jaded jonin. The White Fang might have failed the mission that started the Third Great Ninja War, but he was a legend. Chiyo of the Ten Puppets had run from him, and he had rescued countless shinobi from ambushes just by smelling the intruders beyond even what an Inuzuka could detect. Yes, there had been bitterness and anger, some of it justified because by the Sage, people were dying, but this? No one had wanted this. Had they?

Rumor said Hatake’s young son, barely eleven years old, had found his body and reported it to the chunin desk that morning. But then, the rumor mill said a lot of things. They, and you never needed to ask who They were, because the answer was always Other Leaf Shinobi, said any Uchiha or Hyuga who developed unusual variations of ocular jutsu would get a pay hike and less dangerous missions for their friends. They said the Hokage had battled the Third Tsuchikage and an entire battallion to a standstill at the Five Furrows Gorge with the help of his old teammates. Four ninja against a small army and a man who could disintegrate things to atoms, and they won. Mikoto wanted to believe it, she wanted to believe it so badly, just like she wanted to believe that there would be time after this war, because after this war, they could go back to lazy Sunday afternoons waking up to Kushina’s soft smile and her hair spread across her breasts. She wanted it so badly it hurt. Still, they were both professionals, shinobi trained to fight and ide to protect their comrades, their Village and the Land of Fire. So both women pushed down their grief and shaking hands and left their human vulnerability in their tent. They fought a war that was slowly making them into monsters, and hoped they were right to do so.

_____________________________

Mikoto and Kushina were promoted to “Special Operations” one step below an Anbu mask and while the pay hike and better food was welcome, Minato Namikaze was not. He’d been there for some time, streaking across the Western Front shoring up weak points in the Konoha-Grass line with his Rasengan and perfected teleportation jutsu. His “Yellow Flash” name was getting wider and wider use and she’d seen it in a dead Mist ninja’s Bingo Book once, for what that was worth. Mikoto remembered that he’d been the one to rescue Kushina from Cloud kidnappers all those years ago and always had a sweet spot for her, no matter how much she’d avoided dating him. So it was entirely logical for her to be suspicious and spend an entire strategy session glaring at him. Of course. Entirely logical.

He broached the subject when they were on a covert mission deep into the grasslands that gave the eponymous country its name, four days into a week and a half mission. Their Aburame was meditating as his chakra beetles spread themselves across a mile or more of grass seeking out the trapdoor that had to be there. “So, you and Kushina seem to be going steady,” he said, flipping one of his ridiculous three-pronged kunai absently. Mikoto swallowed a ration bar that tasted like carboard and resisted the urge to flash her Sharingan at him. “And we’re quite happy about it, what’s it to you?”

Minato ran a hand through his hair, fruitlessly attempting to tamp it down, but he still stuck out like a sore thumb with that bright yellow mane. “Nothing bad, honest. I’ve been her friend for a while and I’m just happy she’s happy. Never cared about what some of the guys with chips on their shoulders had to say.”

Now her Sharingan did spiral into existence. “And what did they say?”

“I don’t listen to filth,” he said defensively.

“You brought it up, and they said it in front of you-“

“And I shut it down.” Minato caught the kunai in his hand and, noticing his stronger-than-appropriate grip, stuck the tip in the grass and let it go. “Look, all I wanted to say was you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and know how to keep Kushina out of trouble, so best of luck. You can glare at me for the rest of this war, but as long as she’s with you, I’m happy just staying a friend.” He raised a hand. “Jonin’s oath, I swear.”

Whatever Mikoto was going to say died in her throat as their Aburame rose to his feet. “Found it, six klicks to the northeast, only seven of them. Let’s go.”

Minato pulled his kunai from the dirt and the Uchiha woman knew she needed to say something at least and damn the audience. It wasn’t like the Aburame Clan ever cared about what other people were doing. “Hey Minato,” she managed as the blonde turned to her with a wary expression. “Thanks. Right back at you, if you ever need anything, just send a toad my way.” She offered her hand. “A friend of Kushina’s is a friend of mine, and a war is no place for arguments.”

He took it and a moment of silent understanding passed between them.

For Kushina’s sake, the argument was deferred, but Mikoto had heard the unspoken “for now” in his statement about staying friends, while he knew she’d never actually apologized. They filled the spies’ hideout with black feathers, flesh-eating bugs, or kunai and started the hunt for the next one. That was how war, and Special Operations jonin worked.

When they returned to the Konoha encampment, two of the Uchiha tents were missing. When Mikoto asked about it at dinner than night over a rice bowl with piddling shrimp, she was informed both Uchiha had taken the Clan Head’s offer about mysterious Sharingan but had been getting more and more erratic as the months had worn on. They’d barely survived after they’d turned a scouting mission into an ambush against a Cloud force twice their size, even if they’d won. Commander Homura had offered them a choice between dishonorable discharge into the Konoha Police Force, which was thinning out at a terrifying rate, or a suicide mission deep into Mist territory. They’d both chosen the latter.

There were all sorts of rumors about ninja snapping under the stress of combat, but those rumors were particularly dark and spoken in even softer voices among the Uchiha. Whatever the Elder’s mysterious offer was meant to entice, some of her cousins were taking it with gusto. That night, as Mikoto wound her arms around a perpetually warm Kushina, she voiced the thought out loud. “Do you ever worry about us during this war?”

Kushina turned slightly in her grip to make eye contact and snuggled closer. “Every damn day you duck out of that tent before me, or when my squad gets sent out. I know your teammates died last month, and now your cousins?” She let out a small sigh that smelled like shrimp. “Everybody’s losing somebody and the Uchiha Clan’s one of the bigger ones. Sure, we’re a couple of badass kunoichi, but it’s natural to worry. It means we care about each other, y’know?”

Mikoto let a finger drift up to brush a strand of red hair behind her lover’s ear. “No, I mean _us_. This thing with you and me, sharing a tent and an apartment and our lives.” She let her forehead fall forward to rest on the taller woman’s collarbone so she didn’t have to see Kushina’s expression. “I’m worried that by the time this war ends, with everything we’ve done, we’ll be strangers to each other. I’m worried we might not love each other anymore and not even notice. I’m worried-“

“Hush, hush hush.”

Kushina took Mikoto’s face in her hands and kissed her each time she spoke. On the forehead, nose, and lips. Gentle, and light like a feather, so unlike her. “I know this is overwhelming, and it’s so easy to take all the bad parts of ourselves that are keeping us alive and hate them, because they’re ugly. Sometimes I even scare myself, and that’s ignoring the ball of fur and hate that keeps trying to get out and cause havoc.”

“But you’re not the Nine-Tails at all!”

“And you’re not just a vengeful Uchiha either, Little Bird. We’re both people, with good and bad inside us and part of love is seeing all of it, no matter how scary it is. As long as we’re honest with each other, we’ll get through this, promise.”

Mikoto gave her a watery smile and kissed her back. “When did you get so wise, Kushi? Skimming philosophy books when I’m in the shower?”

They drew closer as Kushina giggled a little. “Well, Mito always said the Uzumaki were supposed to be experts about love, all the way back to Ashura the Kind, so it’s that, y’know?”

“I’ll accept that answer, as long as you can back up that boast.”

She could, and the two women were able to snatch another few hours of happiness as the war swirled around them like a hurricane. They could survive, they were going to make it.

______________________________

The front lines hadn’t budged at all as the War entered its third year and the missions for Special Operations became even more dangerous. Mikoto came back from a raid with tissue damage from a Cloud ninja’s vacuum blade that went through her chest and missed vital organs by either sheer luck, or the fact that Mikoto had just set her assailant on fire. She was in the field hospital for three weeks and when she returned, Kushina dug herself a protective streak a mile wide and terrible in its potency. Whether it was an Uzumaki thing or a jinchuriki thing, the redhead had always healed quickly and now she started to put herself in front of blows aimed at Mikoto. Never mind that she was a close-range fighter and Mikoto’s genjutsu and ninjutsu favored long distance, it went from a few unmentioned occurrences during frantic battles to a Sage-damned pattern. It was when Kushina had grabbed for a kunai and nearly lost a finger to its blade that Mikoto finally confronted her about it, eyes blazing red. Outside the medical tent she’d been pacing in front of. It had taken the medic-nin most of an hour to reattach the digit and the Uchiha had spent that hour running through every possible permutation of their argument. She was equal parts angry, affronted, and fearful and Kushina’s own temper soon flared in response, hair twisting behind her head as they argued.

Mikoto was angry that Kushina kept putting herself in a position that invited even more pain and punishment upon herself. Even if she was able to walk away from it, Mikoto had never asked her to do that. She was a jonin kunoichi and an Uchiha, in the prime of her fighting career, she could take care of herself! Kushina replied that Mikoto was being selfish, that as an Uzumaki, possibly the last one, she could survive things that could hill her girlfriend six times over. Mikoto rolled her eyes at that and said she was worried that the next time, Kushina was going to lose something more important that a finger, which Kushina responded to by saying she could just create a copy of whatever she’d lost if she had enough metal, wood, and sealing paper and Mikoto was making this into a big deal when it didn’t have to be. Mikoto said something about the Uzumaki’s head sharing many of the same qualities, such as thick, dense, and useful only for heavy labor, but that she was scared for her, not just angry. The kunoichi noticed they’d drawn a crowd at the same moment, glared first at one another, then at the crowd, and stalked off in opposite directions. Even though they lay together in their tent, that night, neither of them spoke and Kushina volunteered for a multi-month mission on the Cloud-covered Northern Front the next day, to Danzō’s silent approval.

A multi-month mission a country and a half away. Alone. With Minato Namikaze.

During the rare moments of down time on her Special Operations, Mikoto spoke rarely and spent her time devising a variety of painful and internally lengthy genjutsu tortures for the blonde if he tried anything. But what hurt more than the physical separation was the knowledge they’d both pushed each other away. Back at camp, she sought out her old confidantes, Tsume and Cousin Uruchi and spilled her guts with the help of some Akimichi hooch she’d bought for exactly this purpose. Tsume was sympathetic, but didn’t offer much in the way of a solution while Uruchi stared into the fire for a while, nursing her drink before she spoke up.

“You were right to not want a savior. We’re in a war and saviors have a habit of dying doing so. But that sword to the chest really spooked Kushina and she was trying to come to terms with the idea you’re not as invulnerable as her.”

Mikoto tossed back the small metal cup in her hand and felt the alcohol crawl its way down her throat, clearing her sinuses in the bargain. “I think we bandaged each other up enough before that that she wouldn’t have missed that. I bleed red just like she does and I put my bra on one strap at a time like everyone else.”

Tsume muttered something derogatory about bras. She’d been going commando since the second year of the war, convinced it kept her and Kuromaru on their toes and more likely to survive. Chafed nipples were apparently a small price to pay in comparison, but the two Uchiha ignored her.

“She knows that,” said Uruchi softly, more to the fire than to her cousin. “But we know Kushina’s an emotional woman and that means even if she knows something with her head, her heart can sometimes shout louder and drown it out. One of you needs to swallow their pride and apologize, and do it soon, before fate or blood loss take it out of your hands.” The heavyweight Uchiha held up her hands in a defensive gesture as Mikoto rose to her feet. “Just advice, take it or leave it.” Uruchi poured the rest of her drink into the fire before she left, which caused the flame to leap up into the air in response and had Mikoto collapsing back into her seat with a curse. Several heads turned their way, but lost interest as the fire died back down. The Inuzuka and the Uchiha were silent for a while, each thinking their own private thoughts until Mikoto gave up. “I’ll write her a letter in the morning. No, two letters, to be sure it gets to her, and send them by raven.”

Tsume perked up, as did Kudomaru. “Wait, when did you get a summon?”

“Uchiha contracts corvids for days, goodnight Tsume. The rest of the bottle’s yours.”

Despite her promise, their bedroll was still very cold that night.

________________________

As it turned out, Mikoto never got the chance to send that letter because Stone had decided enough was enough and sent Roshi of the Lava Release after the Special Operations squads, so it was all hands on deck and run like the Shinigami was after you. Raven wings kept her out of the worst of it and the lava even gave her a few updrafts to work with, but it was bitter comfort. Ninja, either Sand or Leaf, who were swallowed by the molten rock either died screaming or in such shock they never uttered a sound as the flesh melted off their bones before those too, charred and were gone. When Orochimaru of the Sannin showed up with a blast of high-pressure water that cut through a mostly-solid lava wall like paper, Roshi made a hasty retreat, to the cheers of the allied shinobi. The normally reserved ninja found himself the target of more than a few hugs and back-slaps, but Mikoto just found his gaze and gave him a sincere nod of thanks. That was the Uchiha’s way, and it was his as well.

If it was that quiet acknowledgement that made him seek out ~~her~~ their tent, or the natural desires a man has for a woman, or something else entirely, Mikoto was never quite sure. Once he’d dissuaded her that he had neither the time nor the interest in making advances, he’d simply sat in the grass outside her tent and they talked. He’d come bye to tell her, regretfully, that her cousin Uruchi was gone, courtesy of a Cloud hunter squad interested in using the war as a cover to steal dojutsu. He’d driven them off and seen to the proper Uchiha cremation rituals, which was respectful of him. With so many diverse squads, and so many dead, everyone ended up learning everyone else’s clan rituals, just in case. When he offered her a glass jar covered with black cloth, Mikoto knew without having to look that he’d delivered her cousin’s eyes to the last Uchiha those eyes had seen and took them with a choked sob. Orochimaru looked regretful, but more than that, he looked uncomfortable. Like he was unused to processing grief in himself, let alone among others. “My sincerest apologies, Uchiha-san. Uruchi really was a good comrade, and she gave me some very good advice once upon a time.”

Mikoto’s red eyes met his golden ones through her tears and her face split into a trembling smile. “She did the same thing for me, just yesterday.”

Orochimaru had nothing to say to that, but obligingly looked away as she scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

“Life is such a fragile thing, especially in war,” he mused. “Which makes its preservation all the more precious, I suppose. I needn’t tell you of the lengths Princess Tsunadae has gone through for that cause, just as I have in my own way.”

Mikoto scrabbled inside her tent for paper and a pencil, but Orochimaru wasn’t paying attention. “The preservation of life during a war, above all else, and yet the oath says to Do No Harm. Such a conundrum, don’t you think, Uchiha-san?”

Mikoto was scribbling on the paper braced against her knees and Orochimaru realized she was barely listening to him, just as he’d barely listened to her. Ships passing in the night, really. This perception vanished when the dark-haired woman thrust the papers at him with a determined and slightly crazed expression of desperate hope. “Orochimaru-sama, I know that substitution jutsu you possess makes you the most likely person to survive this entire war. I also know Commander Danzō has been having the Sannin and their teams run from front to front trying to get this thing turned around.”

“You are well-informed, Mikoto Uchiha,” said the snake man guardedly. “It seems like you are about to ask me to do something out of my way and quite possibly highly dangerous.”

Mikoto shook her head. “All I’m asking is for you to deliver this letter to Kushina Uzumaki next time you’re near the Northern Front. I don’t care if that’s two days from now, two weeks, or two months, just that you make sure she gets it!”

Orochimaru eyed the letter and the outstretched hand with disdain, confusion, and what might have been a quickly-hidden sneer of disgust, but Mikoto wasn’t sure. Even if it was, she was willing to swallow her pride on this one. He’d already proved trustworthy enough to deliver Sharingan eyes to the intended recipient when they were going for half a million yuan or more on the black market.

“Please!” she was begging softly now, and Orochimaru unwound from his seated position to move closer to her tent. How he moved wasn’t clear, but there he was, long oily hair like curtains around his face and the faint smell of disinfectant. His response was equally low, matching her own. “What’s in it for me, though? I’m a ninja and this is a war, no one’s doing charity work in these headbands.”

Thousands of miles away, Kabuto Yakushi sneezed.

Mikoto’s heart felt like a lead weight in her chest, but she kept her hand extended anyway. “I can pay you-“

Orochimaru hissed in disdain and by the Sage he really did sound like a snake. “I don’t take money.” He was genuinely offended and Mikoto’s mind raced. He’d already indicated he’d shown no interest in the other thing desperate shinobi sold to accomplish their missions, and she was glad that was the case, because in her desperation, she might have said yes. She might have hated herself for it and it might have destroyed her relationship with Kushina, but she might have done it. “I guess,” she said, knowing such an offer was dangerous, “I’ll just have to owe you a favor.”

Orochimaru’s smile was just as oily as his hair as he gently took the paper from her unresisting fingers. “Now that, Mikoto Uchiha,” he hissed as the paper disappeared into a pocket of his flak jacket, “Is a price worth paying.” He bowed, with his head touching the grass and departed as Mikoto considered if a late evening shower would cause too many odd looks.

Fugaku Uchiha wandered over from his ending card game and sent the retreating figure a curious look only mildly disturbed by the new scar tissue crossing the bridge of his nose. “Not that I get involved in people’s personal junk, but what was up with tall, pale, and creepy?”

The night was warm, but Mikoto shivered despite it. “Nothing good, I can tell you that.”

She felt Fugaku’s focus sharpen on her and she stood up to meet it. “Anything I need to go to my mother about? You’ve got plenty of cousins and uncles who could pound him to paste before you have to even lift a finger.”

Mikoto shook her head. “Nothing like that Fugaku, though I appreciate the support. Just…swapping favors.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mikoto and Kushina get their first fight and Minato shows up again to be ambiguously Good, though Mikoto doesn't see it that way. He ends up being a one-man sounding board for Kushina to rant at for multiple months, but Mikoto won't know that. Beautiful dumb bastard asked for it really. We also get Fugaku.
> 
> Turns out Danzo saying “Do more war crimes” isn’t something a self-admitted sociopath like Orochimaru is entirely comfortable with. He’s been learning more than just ninjutsu and healing techniques from his teacher and teammates, after all. Empathy is a passing acquaintance but he knows enough to know what he's missing. At least its experiments on enemy ninja, right? Is it even a war crime when stolen enemy organs can give you superpowers? Of course it is.
> 
> We continue with my examination of characters who start out in a grey area and proceed to leap headfirst down the slippery slope. Well, Orochimaru slithers, but I like the idea that he wasn't entirely a bastard from Day One. I also head canon his "skin shedding", crawl-out-the-mouth Substitution jutsu as the last remnant of his extinct clan's techniques. Likely fanon I picked up along the way.
> 
> Paragraphs? Spacing? What's that? I'm just spitballing here.


	7. Holding Out for A Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikoto gets some more family advice and Clan Heir Fugaku hasn't slept properly in a week.

“Grown-ups are idiots. If they really want to bring an end to this endless fighting, they need to sit down with one another and reach a truce”-Tobirama Senju

War was a fickle thing, and Orochimaru was even more so, but Mikoto tried her best to be patient and not worry, to little avail. Assuming a week’s delay before the snake Sannin returned to the Northern Front, then factoring in multiple weeks of travel time at a respectable pace, it still left her with a month or more of silence to endure. After her cousin’s death, she found herself spending more and more time around the Uchiha campfires, rather than drifting around with Kushina to whichever spot was closest to their current position in camp. The familiarity of family, the comfort of common clan rituals and understanding, she realized how much she had missed it when Fugaku’s little group had started leaving a log open for her.

Mikoto was never sure how much her arguments with her mother had become common knowledge or gossip among the rest of the Uchiha, and her relationship with Kushina was not something she shared freely, even among family. Despite how much she missed her mother, even now, the icy rejection of the woman Mikoto loved made her reluctant to trust any others with that secret. Particularly the son of the Clan Head, who might feel duty-bound to inform his mother, which was not a pleasant thought. Still, Mikoto found to her surprise how easy it was to fall back into the banter among fellow Uchiha, watching each other’s micro-expressions as they told tall tales of valor and excitement, or laughing so hard she could barely breathe. No one ever said anything to her, but over the following months, she noticed that one Uchiha or another had found their way to her side in a battle and stayed to protect her blind spots, no matter how teeth-clenchingly close death was. Before Uruchi’s death, Mikoto would have objected, said the same things she’d said to Kushina, that she was a jonin perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but now, she was just relieved to know someone else out there was watching her back. She brought it up one night when some of the other usual suspects had gone to bed and Fugaku had spent the night staring silently into the fire.

She’d expected some brush-off about how in a war that was lasting this long, it was his duty to protect as many Uchiha as possible, but his response was surprisingly honest. While she’d never formally broken away from the Clan, and the house filled with dust in the Uchiha District was still hers, her absence from the Police Force and the Clan district had been noted. Because she’d never been actively hostile, most of the Uchiha had adopted a live-and-let-live policy, then the war had come, and it hadn’t mattered anymore. Some chunin muttered darkly about how higher casualty lists meant more promotions, and while there was a grain of truth in it, promotions went to the truly deserving. With that in mind, Mikoto’s rise had been swift and her actions exceptional. The mere fact she’d earned a moniker of “Raven-Winged Mikoto” said plenty about her skill, in both genjutsu and her unique ninjutsu technique one or two of the younger Uchiha were jealous of. At that, Mikoto laughed out loud and was surprised at how the compliment had felt genuine. Her cousin twice removed wasn’t trying to get into her pants or to curry favor, he seemed to genuinely respect her, and the more he spoke, the more she returned the sentiment. According to a conversation he’d had with his mother, that fight with Roshi of the Hidden Stone had generated a lot of interest among the Leaf Commanders and Mikoto was now rumored to be on the short track to an Anbu position if she wanted it. Commander Danzō had been very impressed she’d survived a man Intelligence suspected to be one of Stone’s newest jinchuriki.

Her jaw dropped and her mind reeled. A jinchuriki. She and the rest of Special Operations had fought a damn jinchuriki and she’d come out alive. If nothing else, that made her a little more confident the bog-standard missions she still took wouldn’t see her dead, provided she kept her wits about her and her mind off Kushina’s absence. She thanked Fugaku and asked how he was doing, as a fellow newly-promoted jonin, not as the Clan head’s son. Fugaku ran a hand down his face, his posture speaking of bone-deep exhaustion they all felt at one time or another. “Mixed blessings all around, as I’m sure you know,” he said. “Lost my brother, had to step up and lead his squad, and now everyone, my mother included, expects me to lead all the time, when I don’t think I’m cut out for it. He had Mother’s natural charisma, and people followed him because he was brave. They just follow me, because they see me as his replacement, and I’m there. It’s not the same. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you this.”

Mikoto shrugged. “People say I’m easy to talk to, y’know? What do you think you’ll do?” She bit her tongue and mentally cursed herself. Kushina’s habitual catchphrase had just slipped out without thinking. Was she being paranoid about this? It wasn’t like most people had the time to care about who she was dating if they were focused on surviving. Still, a battlefield was an easy place to get rid of someone you felt was staining the Clan’s honor… Fugaku looked up from the fire and they both saw the fright and surprise in each other’s eyes. She had to salvage this, so she uttered a laugh that sounded fake the instant she spoke it. “I guess we’ve been a little too honest with each other.” Mikoto made a show of looking around. “We didn’t have that much to drink, did we?”

Fugaku blinked slowly, her words taking longer than they should have to penetrate his brain. Suddenly, his expression was stern, perhaps even grim and suddenly she could see the resemblance to his mother. “Show me your Sharingan, Mikoto Uchiha.” He’d said it like an order and Mikoto was suddenly aware of how far away the other campfires were and how many Uchiha sat at each. She had to play this out and see what he wanted, so she allowed the red and black pinwheels of a three-tomoe, fully matured Sharingan to spin into her eyes. Fugaku studied them and the rest of her face thoughtfully, one hand at his chin as he activated his own. “And you can’t progress them further?”

Mikoto gave him a strange look. “No, why would you think-“ then she remembered the Elder’s edict early in the war. Any variations on the Uchiha’s ocular jutsu were to be reported, its secrets kept within the Clan, with a sizeable pay hike from the Uchiha’s private vaults. And she had the Shadow Raven Technique that no Nara or Uchiha had been able to match or copy. “What is this about, Fugaku?” she demanded, voice low but forceful. He looked torn, then regretful and she could see his mental walls going up. “We’ve been honest so far tonight, Fugaku, let’s continue to speak honestly, as friends and cousins, if nothing else.”

“I have responsibilities as the future Clan Head-“

“That you just said you’re unsure if you can meet. Well, one of those responsibilities is answering the questions Uchiha commanders have for you as Clan Head. I’m an Uchiha Jonin commander, so answer my question.”

His answer came not with words, but his Sharingan began to spin. Mikoto threw up a mental wall in preparation for a genjutsu assault even as her mind recoiled at the foolishness of the attack, but it never came. Fugaku’s tomoe revolved faster and faster then collapsed inwards around his pupil as more dots emerged to replace them. She’d never seen it before, but knew, instinctively what it was, hoping she was wrong. “The Mangekyou Sharingan,” she breathed and Fugaku closed his eyes. When he opened them, they’d returned to the dark black common among the Uchiha and Mikoto realized every muscle in her body was as taught as a tripwire.

Fugaku nodded, whether to himself or her, she wasn’t sure, but he was speaking again. “If you’re on the shortlist for Anbu membership, you’re more likely than most to gain the Mangekyou. Frankly, it’s a miracle you haven’t gained it already, with Uruchi’s death. Mine emerged when my brother died in front of me, and the longer this war drags on, the more Uchiha will gain it and the Clan will suffer.”

Mikoto’s mind was racing, leaping back through half-remembered Clan legends and scraps of rumor for anything approaching a solid fact. “Is it true the only way to gain it is to kill your closest friend?” He was glaring at her now and with a question like that, she deserved it. “There are other ways,” he said tersely, “but all of them involve loss. Pain. Suffering. Death. I wish I did not have to bear this burden, or that I could take it on myself and spare the Clan such misery. You’ve seen what happens when it’s used too much.”

“That reconnaissance mission that turned into an ambush?”

“Yes, one of the more visible failures, I’m afraid. Enough of our side saw it that the Elders had no choice but to censure the Uchiha responsible.”

“Censure?” Mikoto’s voice pitched up an octave and she clamped a hand over her own mouth. A few heads turned their way but soon turned back, for the night was getting colder. “They were ordered onto a suicide mission, how is that censure?”

Fugaku poked the dimming fire with a stick and, unsatisfied, added another log and lit it anew with his own breath. The shadows fled from his face and she could see the new worry lines in his face. “It was the best solution, before they turned on the rest of us. The more Madara’s legacy is used, the blinder the user becomes, and their sanity erodes accordingly. From the moment those eyes awaken, every time they are used, an Uchiha takes one step closer to madness. My Mother and the other Elders have charged me with making sure no other Uchiha falls that far, and I take that duty seriously. If you’re going into Anbu, I felt it was best to warn you ahead of time, no matter what my Mother says about you.”

“And what does your Mother say about me? If this is about Kushina, I have a list of suggestions where you can place those concerns, it’s extensive.” She folded her arms in a defensive gesture. She was getting tired of having to defend the best thing and the best person in her life when so many people seemed to want to tear them down just for existing. But Fugaku now looked taken aback. “What does the Uzumaki girl have to do with any of this? She’s your friend and from what I’ve seen a good fighter, but this is Uchiha business.”

Mikoto shrugged helplessly. “Forget it.”

The man looked doubtful, but obligingly moved on. “Well, my mother’s noticed you’ve come back around to the Uchiha Clan, and she’s noticed we’ve shared more than one campfire. As I’m sure you’ve heard, she’s pretty obsessed with her legacy.”

She groaned, knowing where this was going and Fugaku nodded in shared misery. “She thinks I should marry you and she’s been pointed about it. Fortunately or otherwise, we’re in the middle of war, so that idea’s very much on the backburner. I’ll do what I can to shut it down, but if you could start spreading rumors I’ve been involved with, I don’t know, a couple of Sand shinobi, or some Cloud defectors, that might help smother this before she really gets going.”

His cousin raised an eyebrow so high it disappeared into her headband. “Your plan is to besmirch your own reputation? Sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if I may be frank.”

“You may, but my mother will just be happy there’s more possible Uchiha babies out there. That legacy of hers, she’s more invested in the idea than any of the flesh-and-blood Uchiha who are leaving their blood across five, if not six countries. One day, I’ll show…” Fugaku trailed off and returned to staring into the fire. “The people that would make the Clan better keep dying and the ones focused on tradition are safe back in the village, making the rest of us miserable.”

_______________________________

A horn sounded in the camp, loud, deep, and above all, close. Mikoto and Fugaku leapt to their feet, red eyes piercing the darkness and she could see many of the other campfires responding as well. She swiveled her head, listening for any further noise as the horn sounded again. “That came from the West!” said Fugaku as they leapt in that direction, chakra giving strength to their limbs. Mikoto was grateful their discussion had long since burned away any alcohol she’d had earlier in the evening. At least their tool pouches and flak jackets had weapons within them, but dammit they were supposed to be safe here! Below them she saw chunin rushing to open supply crates and push weapons into the hands of whichever ninja came within reach as messengers scattered back from whatever was happening on the Western side of the camp. Fugaku cursed and dove down into the crowd below as ninja surged forward, nearly crushing some of the genin below in their haste to reach whatever fighting was taking place. She heard his voice raise above the panicked requests for orders or weapons, naturally commanding attention. “Get back, flame take you! Get back! He leapt out of the crowd with a genin messenger who was covered in bruises, boot prints, and had a head wound that was already bleeding. Mikoto held out her arms and Fugaku practically threw the boy into them and was down among the crowd again. “Alright, listen up!” he called out and more and more heads began to turn in his direction. “We can worry about formal assignments and squads later. Right now, grab the two closest shinobi, they’re now your squad! Anyone with better than average night vision, or light-based jutsu, up front with me! Whoever we’re fighting, we need to see them, so that’s priority one! Squad members two and three, your job is to protect the people I just finished describing. When we run into the enemy, I want us to disengage and establish a secondary line two rows of tents behind wherever the front line is, that’s our insurance. We’ll go from there once the situation is clear. Any objections?”

Some murmuring from the crowd, but no one spoke up, so Fugaku nodded. “Let’s move out!”

The crowd of shinobi roared and charged forward with Fugaku at their head. Mikoto took a moment to stare the genin in the eye and plumbed his brain for whatever he might have known, which wasn’t much. _Enemy shinobi he hadn’t seen had started taking out patrols simultaneously, which meant a sizeable assault. None of the Aburame or Inuzuka he’d seen had been able to pinpoint their attackers, and the white-clad Hyuga had been the first to fall, their garb making them obvious in the meagre light of torches_. She retreated from the boy’s mind, winked at his fearful expression and set him down on a stack of now ransacked cargo crates. The entire process had taken less than ten seconds and she hadn’t even asked his name even though the dark hair and eyes told her he was probably an Uchiha. It didn’t matter. She raced after the Leaf reinforcements and caught up as they reached what could’ve been called a battle but was more of a slaughter.

Fugaku’s impromptu teams spread out in search of the dwindling clusters of beleaguered Leaf shinobi, some of whom were grappling with invisible opponents. The Hyuga and Uchiha in their charge were pointing and shouting, so Mikoto activated her own Sharingan and gasped as she saw bluish hazes materialize in the trees and all around the encampment. It was a true invisibility jutsu and her Sharingan’s own chakra-perceptive powers could barely make out the fuzzy chakra signatures. Still, if they could see them, the Leaf could fight them. She gathered her own chakra and made the appropriate seven-string of hand signs and felt vast, black, semi-solid winds sprout from her back. The night and the barrage of fireballs from the Leaf forces caused the shadows to leap and dance wildly and Mikoto spread her wings wide to gather the scraps into herself even as she saw a scarred Nara do the same less than a dozen feet from her, a Hyuga speaking into his ear and pointing. Tentacles of shadow speared out from his kneeling form and punctured several of the blue hazes, which solidified into human shapes as they died.

She saw other combatants take their own approaches, to varying effect, but all with the same desperation. She saw two Akimichi’s massive fists pummel an entire area of open ground, withdrawing to reveal the pummeled and twisted corpses of blue-and-brown Stone jonin. She saw a bearded, wild-looking Leaf shinobi grin past the blood in his teeth and spit blood onto an invisible attacker, who was promptly skewered from all sides by Leaf shinobi. Mikoto glared and launched volley after volley of bladed shadow feathers and any suggestion of blue glows and winced a silent apology as a dark-skinned Umino chunin barely managed to fall back in time to avoid the rain of projectiles. A truly massive fireball the size of a small house flew away from the fighting and exploded among the treeline and marked Fugaku’s position as his voice rang out urging the Leaf forwards. But it wasn’t enough.

The Leaf shinobi had been caught unawares, sleeping, or unprepared and they were paying for it with their lives. Many of them were recovering from missions earlier in the day and had little chakra reserves for active combat, or were simply tired and sluggish. While adrenaline and fear boosted them back up, some of them were a second or two slower to respond than they normally were and in that second, blades pierced vital organs or spilled lifeblood across tents shinobi had been sleeping in barely ten minutes ago. Another horn blast sounded, painfully close this time, and nearly every shinobi winced and many covered their ears reflexively. The Stone shinobi capitalized on their momentum and suddenly Fugaku’s secondary line was now the front line and fire was spreading across the tents even as genin teams or lone chunin rushed forwards with buckets of water or spat streams of it from their mouths, using spit as a catalyst.

Mikoto dropped down to land on top of an anchoring post, breathing hard with effort. She’d used up a good portion of her chakra and most of the shadows in the vicinity were growing smaller as the fires spread. She drew in what pools of darkness remained but broke off and slid down the pole as a volley of kunai sailed through where she’d been. She drew a handful of shuriken and moved through the meagre sight-blocking area the tents provided and calculated a return trajectory, only for a second kunai volley to tear through the canvas and rip holes in her pants, shoulders, and missed her lung only thanks to the pouch of empty scrolls just under her left breast. The Uchiha threw the shuriken automatically as her other hand pulled the kunai out of the ruined pocket and sniffed it. No poision, thankfully. The Mist shinobi had taken to poisoning everything they could get their hands on, copying Sand, and Intel had been worried Stone would take up the practice. She ran at a low crouch as she and her invisible opponent attempted to pin one another down. She saw two blue blurs in the far distance, at the very edge of her visual range and mentally compensated for height. Her hands twisted into a makeshift sight and her Sharingan blazed. If she couldn’t see them, face height was a matter of guesswork, but it should still…Mikoto grinned as the world fell away and she saw a distant figure standing in the open between two tents, illuminated by the fire around her. She was seeing through her enemy’s eyes in a headache-inducing double vision as the jutsu hit two Stone nin at once and combined their perceptions. She crushed the neurons in their brain stems with a pinpoint burst of chakra and withdrew, diving to the dirt in case her momentary stillness made her a tempting target. The two blurs dimmed and fell to the ground as well, their minds severed from further communication with the spine and the rest of their bodies, even if they were technically still alive. Mikoto picked up two of the kunai in the dirt around her. She planned to change that.

Suddenly she heard a crescendo of shouts and a swell of cheering from where the main battle had been and turned on her heel to return. Shouts of “It’s him!” and “Evil Eye Fugaku, retreat, retreat!” There was a hissing noise and Mikoto saw a massive cloud of water descend from the night sky, only to explode outward, dousing the fires and soaking dozens of tents and ninja alike as more screams of terror rang out from the Stone ninja. “Gods, it’s them!”, “They followed us back!” “Code Red, Code Red!”

She turned the corner and her heart lept into her throat at the sight as Kushina Uzumaki flung seal-wrapped kunai in every direction, causing waves of water and neon green liquid to fountain out from the impact points as golden chains erupted from her back. A dozen blue blurs now marked out by the green paint charged at her and the chains tossed them high into the sky in dismissal. Red hair hung around her like a halo, even as it waved in anger, and Kushina’s fanged grin spoke of dark fates for any Stone ninja foolish enough to be within her range. Mikoto gathered the newly resurgent shadows to her and sprang back into the sky, only to see something yellow streak across her vision and cause a blue blur to spurt bright red blood and fall back to earth. She could barely follow it even with the Sharingan as kunai of his own scattered outwards and the Leaf ninja whooped in victory. Eeverywheree she looked, blue blurs were coalescing into visible corpses or were fleeing from the camp with all possible speed. Even then, the yellow streak caught up to some of them, reaping a terrible harvest among the invaders just as Mikoto did in her own pursuit.

When the stragglers had been dealt with, the blur resolved itself into a clear-eyed and blood-splattered Minato Namikaze and suddenly the nickname “Yellow Flash” seemed quite appropriate. He gave her a brief nod of respect and she returned it as they both returned to the Leaf’s camp. “Something new they put together within the last week,” he breathed between tree branches. “Tricky to use, thank Gods, but even trickier to foil. We came as soon as we heard they’d sent trainers this direction.”

Mikoto’s foot missed a branch, but she recovered by dropping several feet and swinging back up as the blonde never missed a beat. “How big is this?” she asked, knowing what the answer was likely going to be and hoping he had some good news, but it was not to be. His defeated tone was enough. “Very big. Every one of those ghosts that escapes is another one who can teach it to more and more ninja, and if we’re unlucky and figure out how to simplify it, this could become an avalanche.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook out some of the blood that hadn’t yet dried absently, which he’d probably done before. “We might have to sue for peace if that happens.”

But that pronouncement fell on deaf ears, for they had once again reached the encampment and Mikoto had eyes for only one person. “Kushi!” She waved as they landed and Kushina met her halfway, spinning the Uchiha woman into a hug that was so tight it was nearly bone-crushing. “You’re okay!” they said at the same time, grasping at shoulders, cheeks, every part of the other they could reach and only vaguely aware there were other people around them. “How did you-“

“Who cares about how?” Kushina’s eyes sparkled and she buried her forehead in the cleft of Mikoto’s neck. “You’re here and alive and oh Little Bird…”

The Uchiha felt so full of love she could burst and hugged her girlfriend back just as hard. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered. “I was so afraid the last thing we ever said to each other was because of some stupid argument and I didn’t know what I would do without you.”

Kushina released her and dug around not in her jacket pocket, but underneath her dark blue shirt before producing a crumpled, dirty, and familiar sheet of paper with a watery grin. “Your letter said everything, Little Bird, and that kept me going.”

Mikoto wrinkled her nose even as she burst into laughter as she saw the paper clip attatched to it. “Did you actually clip that onto your bra? That’s so stupid!”

“Well, you did tell me to keep it close to my heart.”

Well, after something like that, Mikoto absolutely had to kiss her. The two kunoichi came together for what felt like an eternity until a not-so-polite cough from behind them caused them to remember where they were. Mikoto felt her face heat up as the realization hit her that they’d reunited and kissed in front of what must be most of a company, nearly 400 Leaf ninja. Minato looked equally emberassed on their behalf while Fugaku looked like he’d gotten a concussion. The brown-haired Uchiha’s mouth moved silently until some snickering Uchiha next to him stepped on his foot. “Ah,” was all he said and the expression on his face was so funny both kunoichi started laughing. That started a wave of mirth that spread across all of the survivors and kept going as other ninja started making faces of their own, simply to keep the joke going. Some of them were laughing at Fugaku, some of them were laughing at her, but most of them were simply laughing because they were alive, and that was a good thing.

In the weeks that followed, as the camp regained some semblance of normality and guard patrols doubled, now with eye-based dojutsu in every squad, muffled snickers could still be heard at every turn. As it turned out, Kushina’s green paint seals were both eye-searingly bright and difficult to remove, so a great number of ninja now sported bright green tents or clothes, and it was somehow just as funny every single time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I create an entire chapter and swing in the Third Great War based on the jutsu one Stone Ninja used against Kakashi and Obito in Kakashi Gaiden. True invisibility would have to be pretty tough to pull off, so I limited it to a jonin/high chunin technique. Plus, as it masks scent, Kakashi couldn't smell him in the show. Sure the Hatake having a strong sense of smell is another fanon thing, but the juxtaposition of Inuzuka-Pack Dogs and Hatake-Lone Wolves is one of those semi-accidental things Kishimoto could have made more interesting. 
> 
> I'm also a big sucker for the cinema-style cavalry coming over the hill sequence, which in this case is a particular blonde and redhead. I'm trying to get better at writing battle scenes that flow, so you get this.  
> Kushina had water and earth release, from what I vaguely remember, but fire isn't entirely outside her grasp thanks to the passive buffs being the Kyuubi jinchuriki gives her. Jinchuriki and Kage should be the end-all-be-all of the shinobi world, IMO. Uchiha get strong temporary buffs until their brains pop from all the Big Evil, but until Tsunadae invented competent medical ninja, eye transplants were a pipe dream. The EMS was a Madara-only desperate attempt that nearly killed him from infection anyway.


	8. Freebird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Anbu Black Ops send a polite invitation, but they also have some nasty surprises.

“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”-Blaise Pascal

As it turned out, helping to save hundreds of ninja from invisible enemies and preventing a total rout provided an impressive amount of prestige to the ninja who had distinguished themselves as well as a friendlier environment. Even though Mikoto had spent dozens of hours staring at the ceiling of their tent and worrying about the Leaf’s reaction, as it turned out she’d wildly overestimated the average ninja’s hostility. Grins, thumbs-up, and congratulations flowed in from all directions and Mikoto didn’t know how to handle the public adulation. Kushina just kept up her smile, as genuine as ever and shook hands or enquired after family and previous squadmates. Her natural charisma, one of the things that had drawn Mikoto to her, was one of the things that also made her a gifted leader and there were whispers she would, in fact, make a good Hokage. There were similar whispers about Fugaku and Minato as well, because the former had rallied and led the Leaf’s counterattack while the latter had gained renown on the Northern Front. Whatever he’d been up to in the last few months, it had been enough as word trickled down that Hidden Stone had labeled the Yellow Flash as a “Flee on Sight” adversary. Not even the Third Hokage had merited that warning, and the last two who’d had that title had been Hashirama, the first God of Shinobi, and her ancestor, Madara Uchiha. For the Leaf’s officers, these were glowing recommendations indeed.

Fugaku disappeared from the campfires as he was “pulled upstairs” and Mikoto enlisted Tsume to help spread the rumors he’d suggested about his promiscuity. It had been strange, but he’d insisted, so it was no skin off her back. Kushina was accomplishing that on her own, anyway. Their reunion had been everything they had both hoped for, even against their better judgement, for whatever worries Mikoto had harbored about falling out of love were proven wonderfully wrong. Perhaps absence had simply made the heart grow fonder, more likely their time apart had allowed both kunoichi to grow as people, so they grew closer in turn, if that was even possible. That first week, they were joined at the hip and Kushina had a variety of excuses the Western quartermasters hadn’t heard yet to get them thirty minutes of time in a tent or behind some supply crates. On one occasion, the silver-haired Hatake who Minato had taken under his wing had seen them and they babbled excuses and scrambled for their clothes, which were still mostly on, thank the Sage. It was difficult to tell with the mask, but Kushina was worried he’d fainted standing up, as he’d become completely unresponsive, even when she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. So they’d dragged him back to Minato, who was now trapped filing reports as the nominal commanding officer while Kushina abused her slightly lower rank to get in even more trouble. Good trouble, as they say.

So it was to their surprise when one morning, Mikoto crawled out of their tent in search of water, she was instead met with a hooded, masked figure in Anbu black. The mask appeared to be a Monkey, but she wasn’t sure at this hour. “Commander Danzō requires your presence, Mikoto Uchiha, Kushina Uzumaki,” said the figure in a monotone that could have been bored or could’ve been on heavy pain medication. “You are expected at 0800 hours, Row 37, Tent 12.” The Anbu turned, its message delivered, and departed oblivious to the stares it drew.

“Mmm, what was that about, Little Bird?” came a sleepy voice from inside the tent.

“I think we’re about to get promoted again.”

______________________________________

Shimura Danzō was an intimidating figure because despite his age, which was on the wrong side of fifty, he was still a combat-active shinobi about whom almost nothing was known. He was a Wind-style user and had lost his arm at some point in the Second Great War and had been seen in the company of Orochimaru of the Sannin, or perhaps it was the other way around. The tent they’d found him in was deep into the resting spaces allotted to countless chunin and just as unremarkable. Mikoto had walked past it dozens of times and never given it a second thought and had never seen him near it. The two Anbu looming behind him made the tent seem even smaller, but Danzō seemed perfectly at ease. Mikoto and Kushina stood at attention in front of him, eyes staring straight ahead in perfect parade ground rest for twenty minutes before Danzō put his pen down and spoke without preamble.

“You two have proven yourselves exceptional kunoichi and have defended the Leaf for two decades now. With that record of service, particularly during the course of this war and under severe stress, I would like to extend an offer of Anbu membership to you both. A standard six-month initial tenure, to be renewed at your discretion and at the approval of the Head of the Anbu, namely, myself. In recognition of your unique relationship and exemplary teamwork, effort will be made to retain both of you on similar squads or missions, time and circumstance permitting. Your pay will be increased to-“ He named a figure that would have seen the two of them able to afford an entire house in the residential district within two months of their tenure. “Considering the increased risk and stressors applied to Anbu agents in the course of their duties. Furthermore, at least one period of Anbu tenure is considered customary for prospective Hokage candidates, which this offer will fulfill.”

Kushina’s eyes narrowed. It was true that she’d been proclaiming that she would be Hokage from almost the day she’d stepped foot in the Leaf Village, so it wasn’t exactly a secret. But to state it so baldly as a motivating factor for Anbu membership meant it wasn’t just rumor. She was under serious consideration for the Hat. Additional allowances for their relationship as well, now that was suspicious so despite the fact they’d only just reunited, Kushina squared her shoulders and responded. “The additional efforts you speak of will not be necessary and would cause unnecessary paperwork, possibly slowing mission allotment when Anbu missions are the most likely to be time-sensitive or delicate. While your understanding and good faith is appreciated,” she paused to make sure it was, “That portion of your proposal is redundant. Uchiha-san and I are perfectly capable of operating independently should the need arise.”

Mikoto realized she should have activated her Sharingan before they’d walked into the tent to watch for lies, but to do so now could be considered an aggressive action. Moreover, it was impolite, and implied the speaker was not to be trusted. He was the Head of the Anbu Black Ops, true, so she instead decided to assume a certain amount of skullduggery nonetheless. So, to the normal eye, Danzō’s face remained impassive as he continued.

“Your professionalism does you credit, Uzumaki-san. Out of curiosity, is everyone in this room aware of KPMD dash zero, zero, nine, which has been classified as an S-Class secret?”

As Kushina started and Mikoto stared in incomprehension, Danzō raised a hand to forestall her objection. “Understanding that a committed long-term relationship such as this grants a certain amount of leeway, provided subjects show adequate discernment.”

Mikoto was starting to guess what this was about but waited for Kushina just in case. The redhead took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ve revealed my existence as the Nine-Tails jinchuriki solely to Mikoto Uchiha, who has my full confidence. Due to the actions of the Cloud Village a decade or more ago and my recovery by Minato Namikaze, I believe he may have suspicions as to my importance, but no solid evidence. He has never made any effort to share his suspicions with myself or others.”

Danzō nodded again and what little of his face they could see behind bandages was pensive. “Another trusted asset who is being considered for the position of Hokage. Beetle, perform the usual investigations as a matter of security regardless.” One of the Anbu nodded and sank into the ground without a trace. The grass below his feet hadn’t even stirred. Now that was impressive jutsu. “As you are the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, your emotional and physical stability remains among this village’s highest priorities, while retaining your formidable combat prowess in the prosecution of this war. Your psychological profiles indicate a stable relationship meeting all the markers for adequate mental health maintenance for standard Anbu operatives, though I will warn you the course of your tenure is expected to degrade that stability by an estimated twenty-eight percent. Furthermore, one of our analysts has indicated Mikoto Uchiha may show signs of codependent tendencies which may be reciprocated under high-stress situations.”

Now both Mikoto and Kushina were glaring at the old man, who didn’t look perturbed in the slightest. Kushina had her hands on her hips. “What, so some egghead all the way back in Konoha thinks because we love each other and there’s a war going on, she shows signs of instability? Anbu needs better psychologists, y’know!”

“Your relationship does not matter to me, insofar as it ensures loyalty to Konoha and the successful completion of high-risk missions. Nonetheless, our efforts to coordinate deployments will proceed regardless as an operational failsafe.”

Danzō said failsafe the way other ninjas commented on poison, as if its very existence was a disappointment. Kushina breathed out through her nose and Mikoto could see she was struggling to remain calm. That made two of them. How could one old man be so infuriating while making every effort to welcome them? Well, he was welcoming them to a society of assassins and spies who did the dirtiest jobs the ninja world had to offer. That had to be part of it. He folded his hands in his lap. “Are there any further questions or addendums at this time?”

Sage, he talked like their paperwork. Somehow.

Mikoto ran the idea of Anbu service through her head and couldn’t find anything that made it particularly attractive. They were in the middle of a war, she was already getting paid by Konoha to kill people and her skill level made survival at their current positions more likely than not. The reason for the ludicrously high Anbu pay Danzō had cited was because the average lifespan of an agent had supposedly shrunk from a year and a half down to three weeks. The newest Anbu tended to collect only the one paycheck and their relatives picked up the second, and last one. If Anbu also were the ones involved in this jinchuriki business, then she might be meeting Roshi of the Lava Release sooner than she had hoped for, which was not a pleasant prospect. It wasn’t cowardly, but rather a frank assessment of her survival compared to Kushi’s own. She’d seen Kushina pull an entire fuma blade out of her chest and be raring to go after sleeping through the night. The very durability that had been the source of their original argument now made it far more likely Kushina would survive Anbu service. Compared to that, Mikoto was entirely mortal. She spoke up in the silence. “Is this offer a package deal only? Could Kushina accept on her own? Not wishing to disrespect your generous offer sir, but I believe her survival is nearly assured while mine is considerably lower.”

Danzō’s smile was brief and quickly erased, but Mikoto caught it anyway and her sense that the Anbu head was playing multiple games here intensified. Kushna was looking at her with bewilderment and a hint of anger. “What’s this about, you’ve never been afraid of missions before now. Only difference is we wear a mask when we do them, y’know?”

She thought the redhead was perhaps simplifying things a bit too much, but Mikoto knew her girlfriend enough to ready a precision strike, deployed immediately. “You know the Hat will mean nothing to you if I die before you get it. Isn’t that true?” She could almost see something crumple inside Kushina as the words hit her, but Mikoto continued, this time addressing both Kushina and Danzō. “I’m not afraid to die for the Leaf or for my future Hokage, that’s not the concern. I am worried about her watching me die instead. I chose to be a shinobi knowing this was a possibility, not the near certainty Anbu service promises to make it.” She remembered he was a superior at the last second. “Sir.” She finished.

The old man seemed to expect this. “Which is why we are suggesting the combined postings to alleviate such concerns. Rest assured, Mikoto Uchiha, I am not in the habit of destroying useful ninja tools just because the moment may require it. When Anbu takes lives or allows lives to be taken, it is always with the protection of the Leaf in mind. The Village’s long-term interests, beyond the needs of a single mission.”

Kushina clenched her fists.

“And how’d that work out for Sakumo Hatake?”

It was almost impressive, how the redhead had managed to make Shimura Danzō visibly angry. Mikoto shot her a look, which Kushina caught. She couldn’t believe she’d said it and the redhead was in equal disbelief the words had left her own mouth. She might have just torpedoed her own chances of becoming Hokage.

“Perhaps it would be best if I spoke to Uchiha-san alone,” said Danzō in a tone that suggested it wasn’t a possibility at all. Kushina bowed from the waist. “I will take your offer under consideration, sir. It has been educational, meeting you.”

The old man inclined his head. “Likewise, Kushina Uzumaki. May the waves send you on your way.”

Kushina left the tent and proceeded to absolutely annihilate the nearest training ground to work off her anger. Better than waiting around and letting it stew, lest her unwanted passenger attempted to use it to stage another painful, but fruitless escape attempt. Back inside the tent, Mikoto folded her arms and looked down at the still seated Anbu commander. “Not that I doubt your offer of Anbu membership was genuine, but what’s this really about?”

Danzō held out his hand and the remaining mask produced a manilla folder from within the endless robes and placed it in his waiting hand. He removed the first sheaf and offered it to her. As she read it, Mikoto’s eyes widened.

**An Official Proclamation from the Uchiha Clan, bearing the signatures of all Five Elders and the Uchiha Clan Head, carrying the force of Konoha Law:**

_Due to the length of the Leaf Village’s present difficulties, and the increased casualty rates that have resulted, the Uchiha Clan is now in danger of losing genetic viability within three generations. As a result, the Clan is willing to sponsor any Uchiha Clan couples with child-bearing capacity for honorable medical discharge, in the interests of maintaining the Clan. External bloodline additions are welcome, provided blood samples and family history are submitted alongside a marriage certificate. Furthermore, certain bloodlines with a history of producing powerful shinobi will be provided additional benefits and will be allowed to choose two personal or related individuals to also retire with honors. In the event an individual with child-bearing capabilities is willing to perform this task but has no romantic partner, the Uchiha Clan will provide one._

_Rest assured, this is not a step taken lightly. The Clan is aware of the severe difficulties and additional pressures this may place upon eligible members. Any ninja who chooses to continue their service will not be officially censured and their decision will not be recorded in any way shape, or form. Conversely, ninja who choose to support the Clan and its fortunes during this difficult period will be rewarded and supported in every way possible._

_Signed,_

_Sayaka Uchiha, Clan Head_

_Eiichi Uchiha, Elder. Yua Uchiha, Elder. Ryoichi Uchiha, Elder._

_Fumihiro Uchiha, Elder. Rumiko Uchiha, Elder._

Fugaku’s warnings about marriage over a solitary campfire two weeks earlier ran through her mind as she turned over the missive, searching for a date. She handed it back, mouth dry. “When will this be issued?”

“At the end of the week, I’m afraid. Copies will be sent by raven or by hawk to Uchiha stationed at outposts or other fronts, including applications for honorable discharge and a number of fertility enhancements.”

Mikoto wished she had a chair to collapse into, but she ran a hand through her hair over and over. “You can’t be serious. They can’t be serious. Do they understand how many Uchiha would take offense at this? The Clan has a history of fighting on the frontlines through three Ninja Wars now, and they expect us to just sit back and get pregnant?”

“They are quite serious, and are convinced the Clan’s offers of safety to conditional non-Uchiha as well as any spouses provides sufficient incentive. And I am quite aware of the Uchiha Clan’s history as exceptional ninja, I was alive for all three of these wars and survived each one. However, I believe this other item will be of greater interest to you, and it was far more difficult to acquire.”

He handed her the remainder of the folder, which was a bizarre mix of photographed sections of the Uchiha Clan Scrolls, charcoal rubbings of a stone tablet she couldn’t make sense of, and what she realized with a shock of horror, were her own medical records from childhood to a snippet from a field medic she’d seen last week to heal a minor laceration. “I believe the executive summary would be the best place to start.” Flipping back to the plain sheet of typed paper, her horror only grew with each line.

**Genetic Analysis of Prominent Bloodlines Within the Uchiha Clan, Commissioned by Sayaka Uchiha, Clan Head.**

_While unacknowledged due to the political situation, (See Uchiha, Madara Death) the former Clan Head had three illegitimate children over the course of his adult life, none of whom wished to formally accept their parentage. However, Clan interest demanded the continuation and notation of the Madara/Izuna Uchiha line in the event further powerful ocular jutsu were developed that could overcome the line’s obvious tendency towards psychological instability, mood swings, and mountain-crushing power (See Susan’oo, Perfect Realization)._

_Promulgation of the Madara/Izuna line was extraordinarily successful in 24 M.E. thanks to the efforts of Kobaku Uchiha, who had three wives over the course of his life and produced twelve children. Eight of those children perished in the Second Great Shinobi War, providing the Clan a salient example that the Madara/Izuna line remained unstable despite the best emotional and genetic matches within the Leaf village. However, of the remaining four children, two were infertile due to the recessive R78 genome and childhood trauma, respectively. The remaining two Uchiha became joint leaders of the Clan and ruled well until their death._

_The two brothers sired five additional children over the span of several years, namely Kikyō Uchiha, who died in the opening months of the Third Great Shinobi War. As of this writing, the only survivor of the Madara/Izuna bloodline is her daughter, Mikoto Uchiha, who has attained the rank of Special Operations Jonin and the moniker “Raven-Winged Mikoto”._

Mikoto only had the barest wobble of warning before her legs gave out from under her and she tumbled to the grassy floor of the tent. She read the page again, then leafed through the other documents, growing more frantic as each one confirmed what the summary suggested. She glared up at Danzo and now the whorls of the Sharingan spun into existence at her will. She was done being polite. “If this is some sort of test-“

Danzō sounded disappointed. “I hardly have the time or the energy to send my elite agents to create convincing forgeries merely to unsettle an excellent shinobi I wish to join their ranks. It is the truth. However, you may wish to examine the back of that summary. I should have included the second page, in retrospect.”

Mikoto went over the report once more, this time with fresh eyes, committing every scrap of information to memory the way she had countless pages of intelligence. Only then did she turn over the genetic analysis.

**Genetic Analysis and Personality Compatibility Assessment for Mikoto Uchiha, Commissioned by Sayaka Uchiha, Clan Head.**

_While previous analysis indicates the continuation of the Madara/Izuna Bloodline, as of April 3 rd 43 M.E Mikoto Uchiha shows no visible signs of psychological instability beyond the Uchiha baseline (See Genetic Analysis Uchiha). While Clan-wide genetic predisposition to alcoholism and depression are present according to her last bloodwork in 42 M.E. she shows no signs of either. Personality interviews conducted in field conditions with close friends (See Inuzuka, Tsume and Uchiha, Uruchi) indicate positive psychological state compared to other Clans. Possibility Uchiha Clan’s depressive tendencies allow them to adopt to certain levels of battlefield stress, but hypothesis unconfirmed en masse. _

_Personal justu usage and combat acumen on the personal, tactical, and strategic level is high across all fields, indicating a truly exceptional shinobi. Custom jutsu development of wings that allowed close to true flight created suspicion of prohibited jutsu usage (See Izanagi, Mangekyo Variations. Cobalt Violence access required). Further examination and testimony from trusted source (Uchiha, Fugaku) confirms the authenticity of jutsu development, case closed barring further developments. If Mikoto Uchiha develops Sharingan variations in the vein of her genetic ancestor, the potential power could allow the Leaf Village to drastically alter battlefield conditions in its favor, potentially ending the war outright. However, the bloodline’s tendency towards instability and megalomania could also portend the destruction of the Leaf Village itself (See next paragraph)._

**_Politicly Sensitive Information_ ** _: Due to the Stone offensive on March 21 st, which was driven back by the combined efforts of Fugaku Uchiha, Mikoto Uchiha, Minato Namikaze, and Kushina Uzumaki, three problems presented themselves. Firstly, Mikoto Uchiha is romantically and sexually involved with Kushina Uzumaki (See Uzushio. Kage Council Access only). As the relationship is stable and has lasted multiple years under heavy stress, it is unlikely Mikoto Uchiha will conceive children in the natural course of her life or will willingly enter into a relationship with a man capable of siring children. Due to the public nature of this revelation, this situation is politicly delicate and may limit available options. Secondly, as the jinchuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox is romantically involved with the last known heir of Madara Uchiha, extreme caution is advised. Beyond the immense physical danger two powerful kunoichi could offer, duress and the development of Sharingan variations (See Mangekyo) offer the possibility, of the weaponization of the Nine-Tailed Fox against the Uchiha Clan (See Book of Grudges)._

_Finally, the events of March 21 st have caused multiple parties to advance Fugaku Uchiha, Kushina Uzumaki, and Minato Namikaze as candidates for Fourth Hokage. While the ascension of an Uchiha Hokage would be the apex of the Clan’s power, it is also unlikely. Kushina Uzumaki as Hokage remains a distinct possibility and would make the influence and goodwill of Mikoto Uchiha a priority for the Clan. Finally, Minato Namikaze is an acceptable alternative compared to Orochimaru of the Sannin (See GAPC for Orochimaru). As political candidates, any visible action on the part of the Uchiha Clan or through known cutouts against the above ninja carries the highest possible risk._

**_Personal Testimonies_ ** _:_

_Mother,_

_I realize our relationship has never been what either of us wanted it to be. I agree that Mikoto Uchiha is a beautiful woman and a powerful kunoichi and admire her greatly both as a Clan member and as a comrade on the battlefield. However, I do not believe she will ever consent to a marriage between us and any attempt you make to force the match will only alienate her. Furthermore, I have no wish to wed, let alone, bed someone who has no interest in me and indeed seemed quite happy with her beloved._

_Konoha Law (Edict 45 I believe) is quite clear than any attempts by Clans to call off or interfere in marriages they deem unsuitable are not tolerated. Not only would this call for action by the Hokage, but if necessary, I will join the other Clan Heads in censoring the Uchiha Clan myself. This ultimatum will be my last word on the subject, which is why it is in writing._

_Mikoto Uchiha is a good woman and if you had any sense, you would be advancing Kushina’s candidacy instead of mine. A trusted voice next to the Hokage is sometimes just as good as having an Uchiha in the seat in the first place. My loyalties remain with Konoha and the Clan, as should yours. Hopefully by the time you read this report, my words from February will have sunk in._

_Still your son,_

_Fugaku Uchiha_

_________________________

Mikoto closed the folder and silently handed it back to Danzō who accepted it without comment. “May I remove something from my jacket?” she asked in a flat tone. The Anbu head watched her for a moment and nodded. Mikoto slowly removed an unobtrusive metal case from her pocket and opened it to reveal a small compact mirror. She hadn’t had occasion to wear makeup for years, but a reflective surface had so many uses in the field. She held the mirror up to her own eyes and cast a genjutsu on herself.

Self-induced genjutsu was a tricky feat to pull off, and was quite taxing on her chakra reserves, but Mikoto had needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere she wouldn’t be watched or heard. Five minutes within the genjutsu, five seconds outside of it. Just enough time for a complete mental breakdown. Screaming, bargaining, tears, denial, the works.

If she was going to go mad, Mikoto Uchiha would even plan for her own diagnosis.

She exited the genjutsu right on schedule and folded the compact back into her jacket pocket to meet Danzō’s singular eye. She expected disdain, perhaps smug superiority, but what she saw was a deep exhaustion and no small amount of pity. “I’ve been Hiruzen Sarutobi’s friend for five and a half decades and gotten into the much of Clan politics only when absolutely necessary,” he said. “Sayaka Uchiha and those damn Elders are going to make it necessary if nothing is done.”

Mikoto rose to her feet and brushed off whatever dirt and grass had gathered on her uniform. “So you’ll have your Anbu pay them a little visit, install Fugaku as the new, reasonable Clan Head? Is that it?”

“It would not be my first option,” said the bandaged man carefully. “That would be this.”

The Anbu next to him produced a large steel box and opened it for Mikoto’s inspection. Inside were two masks, one the red whorls and feline smile of a Fox, and the other the pointy beak and feathered suggestions of a Raven. They were beautiful, in their simplicity and suggestion, for all the violence those masks represented. Danzo continued.

“Your presence on an Anbu deployment would make further pressure from the Uchiha matriarch less direct and would have to go through me. As a jonin and a member of her clan, she has the capability and influence to direct your assignment any number of ways. She could add you to Fugaku Uchiha’s personal guard and hope for the best. She could send you off to fight Mist shinobi at the other end of the continent, knowing Kushina Uzumaki would follow you and invite disaster. She could have you sit in your tent for the rest of the year, provided the war goes well. Once you put on these masks, you will answer to myself and the Hokage alone. What you do will remain a matter of sealed village record until twenty-five years after the end of your life. It will neatly remove the political question of Mikoto Uchiha’s marriage from the equation.”

“I wasn’t aware it was a political question.”

“It is now, and you and your Uzumaki shall have to deal with the consequences.”

She reached for the box, but Danzo dragged it out of her reach and into his lap. “I am an Anbu and this is war. I don’t perform charity cases. If you take this mask, you take on everything that goes with it. If I order you to assassinate the Damiyo of the Land of Stone, you will do so. If I order you to deliver an unmarked briefcase of organs to an anonymous woman in the Land of the Moon, you will do so. If I order you to sacrifice others and even yourself, to keep the Kyuubi jinchuriki safe, you will do so with a smile on your lips. I am providing you both with a solution because it gains my organization two powerful ninja and furthers the interests of the Leaf Village. Should your interests and the Villages diverge, should you attempt to defect, or to escape with Uzumaki to try living in a quaint little house in the Land of Lightning, or whatever Uchiha madness you can conjure up, I will kill you and bury your body in an unmarked grave. And I will sleep just as soundly either way. Have I made the situation and all its possible permutations clear to you, Mikoto Uchiha?”

“Yes, sir.”

Danzō offered her the box once more and this time she took it. It was deceptively light, but Mikoto felt the weight of the decision. “I still have to discuss this with Kushina,” she admitted. “If our opinions or circumstances change?”

“Then return the box to this tent and leave it here. Your masks will be taken care of.”

She smiled a little at that, despite the seriousness of the conversation. “You already refer to them as our masks, when we haven’t given you our decision yet.”

“Child, I had those masks forged for you the moment you both gained your nicknames. Even if they end up shattered and broken, never to be worn, they will still be your masks.”

The camp around them began to murmur with life as a mass rotation of chunin returned from their duties, eagerly seeking sleep, food, or simply somewhere to sit. Time was running out, but Mikoto still hesitated. It felt as if the moment she left the tent, she would connect it to the rest of her world. This small space where an old man carried terrible secrets and beautiful masks would become a part of her life and she would be dealing with the consequences for the rest of her days.

“Why go to this trouble, though? Why show me this, which you obviously stole or copied from inside the Leaf Village. You could have just accepted Kushina into Anbu and let the chips fall where they may. That could still happen.”

Shimura Danzō leaned on his cane and levered himself to his feet with a small groan of effort, but his expression was utterly grave. “Because, Mikoto Uchiha, the idea of a shinobi like yourself sitting on the sidelines with a swollen belly the rest of her days seems like a waste. And I abhor waste beyond all other things.”

Well, she wouldn’t get a better exit than that. Mikoto bowed and left the tent, the box clutched under her arm. Behind her, unheard and unseen, the old man turned to the cloaked figure, who removed the mask and hood to reveal the form of the Third Hokage. “Well, Hiruzen, you’ve got your little morality play, now let’s see how the actors move themselves.”

Sarutobi removed his pipe from his robes and lit it with a flick of his thumb. “Danzō, my old friend, have you ever known an Uzumaki who could follow directions one hundred percent of the time?”

That got a short bark of laughter from his fellow, who performed six hand signs and folded his chair into a small seal on the handle of his walking stick. “As I recall, even with seals, there was always some improvisation.”

The two men moved off with the flow of the crowd, unnoticed save for the smell of sandalwood and tobacco from Hiruzen’s pipe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I spent most of an afternoon typing up fictional briefings. It's not like I could go to the movies. Time to sink my teeth into Politics, joy!
> 
> Here we get to see something I think should have been in the show: Danzo being a bastard, but also, being the kind of bastard who creates solutions as well as obstacles. Over and over again in my outlines I have the word Pragmatic underlined for him, because some of the anime stuff makes Danzō cartoonishly evil, when any good Anbu case officer knows when to go to bat for their agents and national interests, and when to make like a tree and Leaf. Har har har.
> 
> I can't remember if this is a canon or fanon thing, but Sasuke and Itachi are directly descended from Madara and that's the case here through Mikoto. Fugaku's brown-haired butt sure isn't carrying that genetic torch. On that subject, I know the Naruto fandom already fought wars over "forced marriages" and "harems" and whatnot, but this is an attempt (may not succeed) at reigning that in to something approaching reality. It's not a "Sasuke you have to impregnate all these women." It's "Madara's Balls, we're getting killed out here. Somebody make a backroom deal so we can keep our Clan alive and start having babies. I refuse to tap out like the Senju!"  
> (Madara seems like the type of person to not wash his balls, I'm just sayin')


	9. Gimme Shelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikoto and Kushina get some perspective, explore new options and shut down old ones. Minato finds some minions.
> 
> TW:Descriptions of wounds, frank discussion of medical issues around pregnancy. Tsunadae's a doctor.

"Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational."-Piettro Aretino  
  


Mikoto wasn’t surprised when she returned to their tent to find Kushina was not there. She knew that as a loyal Konoha ninja she should really head to the mission dispatch tent for orders. Something productive, destructive to do with her time that harmed enemies of the Leaf instead of allies. She also knew the chances of that happening without incident or grievous injury was the same as the chances an Inuzuka would voluntarily bathe. With a sigh she sat down at the edge of their combined cots and began to remove her sandals and flak jacket, putting them to the side before falling back into the bed she had vacated only a few hours before, eeyes unfocused on the tent pole above her.

And now, it felt like that had been a whole other life. Suddenly things began to make sense. How her departure from the Uchiha District had never been remarked on. How Clan leaders, who would normally at least check in on families going through crises, never contacted her. How her promotions were put through quickly and with little fuss. How the doctors always insisted she fill out duplicates of her blood work and physical exams (for our records they’d said). How, since she’d gained her Sharingan, her teammates had slowly become more and more distant until they had disappeared entirely as the Third Great Ninja War began. She’d only received word of their deaths when she’d scanned the daily casualty lists and the shock had been tremendous. Just like the shock of her mother’s death. Just like the shock of Uruchi’s death.

She gasped as the thought struck her. Had those shocks been deliberate? Was the Uchiha Clan trying to engineer the evolution of her Mangekyo Sharingan? Could they have- No. Even the Uchiha wouldn’t kill fellow members of the Hidden Leaf. But they would take advantage of the opportunity those deaths presented, an opportunity for Madara Uchiha’s legendary power. It was monstrous, it was cruel, it demolished even the faint possibility she could ever marry Fugaku Uchiha if he’d been a party to this.

Mikoto frowned at the tent pole again as a breeze swept through the camp, making the canvas above her rustle and flap in the wind. But that wouldn’t make sense. Fugaku Uchiha, whatever his flaws, did want to protect the clan. He’d warned her of his mother’s marriage plans, and admitted the Mangekyo Sharingan was becoming a dangerous commonality in the Uchiha ranks. He would have warned her, or tried to. He hadn’t wanted this, and there were elders who supported him. Factions within factions within factions. “A war between the nations isn’t enough?” she asked the universe. “There has to be a war within the village too? Who gains from this?”

Ahh, there was the crux of it. Who gained from all this scheming, the politics, the manipulation? Because it wasn’t just about her, Fugaku, and the Uchiha Clan. Kushina was involved too, and her lover deserved to know the full extent of what Danzō had revealed today. She, Fugaku, Orochimaru, and Minato were all now rivals for the seat of the Hokage. Hiruzen Sarutobi led them well, but it had already been four years of war. He was not yet an old man, but he was heading that direction and even the Professor could not halt the inexorable flow of time. Someone would have to step in, and change was clearly needed, if things had degenerated into this ugly war. All of them, as Hokage candidates, represented change of one kind or another. Minato was a commoner, unlinked to any Clan and could be trusted to not play favorites, at the cost of naiveté concerning Clan politics. Similarly, Orochimaru was the last of a nearly extinct clan, and had been learning medical ninjutsu from his colleague Tsunade of the Senju. If Clans smaller than the Uchiha survived this war, his science-advancing genetics knowledge could be the key to a revived, livelier Konoha. That he was a ruthless, creepy bastard was perhaps a secondary concern, but compared to his teacher, genial, forgiving Sarutobi… She wasn’t sure if she liked the idea, but if it took a ruthless bastard to end the war, many in the Leaf would simply be happy the fighting had stopped.

She pictured the map spread across the planning tent’s sole table, updated every day, sometimes every few hours, with the state of the war. Borders grew and shrunk as larger nations devoured their enemy’s adjacent territories, seeking farmland, resources, Clan bloodlines to steal and integrate into their own villages. In the meantime, the smaller nations were simply battlegrounds, their populaces preyed upon by shinobi of all allegiances, their sovereignty and armies more of an afterthought than anything else. Grass was nearly a wasteland in some parts, while the Land of Hot Water had retreated into their strongholds and allowed shinobi free reign in hopes they would remain unmolested. It had mostly worked, but mostly only counted for horeshoes and explosive tags. The Land of Iron had locked down its borders and though some of its samurai had been purchased as supplemental forces by one faction or another, they remained inviolate. The last time the Samurai had left the Land of Iron in force, they had ended the First Great Shinobi War on their own. No one wanted to risk that kind of slaughter, where the villages were depleted from grinding against each other. However, it wasn’t all gloom, she thought, thinking of Kushina’s smile and a few scattered reports from campfires.

Mikoto had heard the faraway Land of Flowers and Land of the Sky, both on opposite sides of the world, beyond Stone and Mist’s borders, were taking refugees without question. Hanzo the Salamander, of the Hidden Rain had been vocal in encouraging peace talks. Tsunadae’s Medical Corps had revolutionized medical treatment, saving the lives of hundreds of shinobi who otherwise would have died. The Land of Snow had used some of its accumulated mineral wealth to begin reconstruction projects, in defiance of the war’s continued toll. The sun still rose in the East, the clouds were still white and fluffy. The world still turned.

Fugaku and Kushina’s candidacies both represented positive changes as well. Fugaku would have been the first Uchiha Hokage, a confirmation of the Clan’s status and a reversal of what some felt was the marginalization of one of the founding forces of Konoha, but he was level-headed and reasonable, able to deal with internal politics and clearly capable of digging in his heels when necessary. Kushina, well…Mikoto allowed herself a brief, somewhat hoarse chuckle. Level-headed and reasonable never applied to Kushina, storming out of the tent earlier had simply been the latest example. She would be Konoha’s first jinchuriki Hokage, easily the most powerful of all the candidates, and with her as the foremost foe on the battlefield, that too could be a way to end the war. Kushina had also been fiercely opposed to the addition of genin to the Leaf’s fighting forces and had been part of the push to relegate them to mostly messenger roles and low-risk missions elsewhere in the Land of Fire. There were changes she wanted to make too.

All of them would have brought change, and so all of them were a threat to the Village’s existing power structure. By attacking Mikoto, the Uchiha Clan also attacked Kushina. Clearing the way for Fugaku’s candidacy was part of the decision, Mikoto was sure, but that single-minded focus on Madara’s bloodline… She had to check something.

Scrambling back into her shoes and jacket, Mikoto set off through the Leaf encampment, looking with fresh eyes at the groups of shinobi, their attitudes, the interplay of words, orders, and relations. Nara, Uchiha, Hyuga, Inuzuka, and a dozen other minor clans all passed around her like a rock in the middle of a stream and for once Mikoto felt herself outside of the collective moment. Everyone, from the Commanders, to the jonin, down to the little purple-haired genin rushing past with an armful of maps, they were all focused on the war, the day’s skirmishes, the fates of their comrades in danger. It felt like her view had widened, become something larger or wider, or perhaps just different. Mikoto stepped to the side of the road and pulled out her compact. No, her eyes were still the same, still the same black. She let out a sigh and went to pocket it. _Mikoto Uchiha, you are being paranoid. Let it go._

But was it really paranoia if her own Clan head was out to get her? She couldn’t afford to let the thought go, but dwelling on it was equally unpleasant. Mikoto kept going, sliding along the edges of the crowd where the momentum was weakest, heading towards the vast medical tent marked with the red sign for “doctor” common across all the Great Nations. A white-robed medical ninja passed her a mask as she entered the tent and she slipped it on without a second thought. Considering how painfully vulnerable some of these ninja looked, ashen-faced and delirious, covered in sweat and stained bandages, it was the least she could do. Her strange sight continued as she noticed the shinobi were grouped according to Clan, biological similarities allowing the nurses to treat similar patients faster, but reinforcing divisions even in sickness and death. It made sense, but now… She strode on through the ranks of beds until she found her target, the robed Tsunadae Senju, her hair pulled back into a tightly wrapped pair of braids and a determined expression on her face as her deft fingers slowly drew a shard of metal from the stomach of a gasping chunin. She tossed the piece disdainfully into a very full bowl of similar shrapnel and folded the man’s skin back together. Her hands began to glow green and within a few minutes, the skin healed over. It wasn’t clean and it would scar, but the man would live. She turned to face Mikoto, expression faintly curious but also put-upon. She jerked her head and began moving to her next patient and Mikoto followed at a brisk walk. “Princess Tsunadae, if I might have a moment of your time?”

“You’re walking and not carrying your internal organs, so no. Find another medical ninja to pester for birth control or something.”

“That wasn’t-what?”

Tsunadae didn’t even look her way, blood evaporating off her hands as chakra burnt it away, leaving them sterile for the next patient. “Because I’m the Senju Princess and the best gods-damned medical ninja this crummy village has ever seen, everyone wants me for something stupid. Until now, I thought you were one of the smart ones. So what is it, Uchiha? Village Politics, Medical Questions, or a marriage proposal? Since my Dan’s out on a long patrol, I’ve been getting a lot of those. Yours should at least be funny.”

Mikoto swallowed whatever mix of emotions was going to throw itself out of her mouth and took a deep breath as they reached a woman with a massive patch of blackened, charred skin across her shoulders and collarbone. “My question involves all three of those things, actually. Anything I can do to help this one?”

“Put your finger on the center of the burned area and try to draw out as much of the foreign Fire chakra in her system as you can. If it’s still burning her on a cellular level, it’ll be useless for me to try healing her. Mitigate as much of the damage as you can.”

Mikoto nodded and placed her index finger on the center of the woman’s breastbone and despite her extreme caution, the skin underneath her finger still crumbled to ash and drifted to the side. That the patient didn’t even react meant it was indeed as bad as it looked. Third-degree burns were hideous. The Uchiha’s own chakra cautiously probed down and out as it spread through the crusty skin and then further into the chakra system below it. She let out a deep breath and pointed her other hand upwards towards the roof of the tent as her own chakra began to entwine itself with the familiar flickering of fire inside the patient. Five candle-sized flames sparked into being above her fingertips as she drew the excess chakra away from the woman’s burnt body and through her own system. It hurt as she did so, but she bore the pain without a flicker of expression. She was an Uchiha, already naturally suited to fire, so compared to the patient, this was nothing. When she finished, the blackened skin had turned a slightly lighter shade of grey and the edges had shrunk to an angry red. The woman on the cot had begun to breather deeper, but on the first attempt, erupted into a hacking cough and made to clutch at her chest before Tsunadae’s hands stopped her. The Senju’s caramel-brown eyes met Mikoto’s and softened slightly. “You hold her wrists while I heal this and spill whatever mystery you’ve got. Keep it simple.”

Her impromptu medical assistant spoke of the general problem: the casualties among even populous clans, the movement to bring kunoichi back to the village to have children and boost the clan’s genetic viability. She asked what Tsunadae knew about medical techniques that could assist with the idea. The medical ninja’s frown told her what the Sannin thought of that idea. “You mean drugs, or in-vitro fertilization?” We’ve got plenty of the former, but the latter’s still about a decade away from anything safe and reliable. If we weren’t in a war, and if I had the funding, I could bring that down to two years, but even then, it would cost a fortune. If you’re thinking of adding a baby bump to get a year’s worth of leave, I suggest you do it the old-fashioned way. I thought you were knocking heels with the Uzumaki though.”

Mikoto sputtered but Tsunadae had a small smirk on her face even as her eyes remained fixed on the steadily decreasing grey, leaving only a wide angry red patch of skin that was already twisting into branchy scar tissue. The Sannin were no longer a team, but they had rubbed off on one another in strange ways. Perhaps this was the infamous Toad Sage’s influence. Still, Mikoto tried to say something. “It’s not, I don’t-“ she covered her eyes and kept going. “I’m trying to find out if there’s a way I can get someone else to carry my kid, or to just keep the important stuff on ice to mollify the clan. Can’t you do that? Remove some eggs and freeze them for safekeeping? Hells, couldn’t you combine Kushina’s and mine, make someone who’s genetically ours?”

Tsunadae’s eyebrows rose higher and higher as the Uchiha spoke and even through her mask, Mikoto could see the expression of disbelief and confusion. “Just what do you think it is we do here? I’m a doctor, people say I perform miracles all the time, but I can’t rewrite the basics of biology. Medical ninjutsu can bend them, but only so far. There’d have to be a male donor, and unless the Yellow Flash has figured out how to put sealing marks on an embryo, we can’t swap around people’s wombs willy-nilly. Even then, the odds of a successful impregnation are astronomical.” The patient had been healed as far as was possible, so Tsunadae stood up and Mikoto followed suit, speaking in hushed tones as they moved down the line. “But the egg-freezing thing, I read an article about it! You could do that, right?”

They reached the next patient, who was already surrounded by two nurses as Tsunadae bent down. “I could, but they’d be useless except as curiosities. Haven’t figured out a way to keep them viable, let alone stable for long periods. And the removal procedure is both dangerous and painful. If you wanted your tubes tied, we could do that. Remove the possibility of children at all. Also painful, if you care about that, hold this.”

A bloody hand passed up two curved white sticks that Mikoto realized were ribs. She held them obediently, heedless of the lifeblood staining her fingers as Tsunadae took two metal replacements and began to solder them onto the stumps. It was fortunate the ninja was out cold. Mikoto thought about Tsunadae’s proposal as the hospital faded into the background.

Pain didn’t bother her, but the possibility of dying was a concern, however small. That last idea though, was attractive. She and Kushina hadn’t even thought about children, had only sparingly talked about marriage. What was the point in the middle of a war, other than to cause needless heartbreak? But the idea she would never be able to have children? It was repellent and beguiling in equal measure. Repellant because it was so final, even with the knowledge she would be perpetuating Madara’s cursed bloodline. To never hold a child, knowing you had made them from nothing, that they were yours and always would be yours, a permanent reminder, someone to carry her existence and memory into the future…They were thoughts more in line with the Senju’s Will of Fire, but they were powerful even to an Uchiha. Beguiling to know there would be something of her face, her memory, her kindness even after she had been burned on a pyre and become a memory, that was an idea Mikoto was unable to reject out of turn. It felt too heavy, too big an idea for her to just decide on.

She was brought back to reality as Tsunadae gently eased the rib bones out of Mikoto’s white-knuckled grip, her expression pitying. “Look, you don’t have to decide anything now. I had plenty of people asking me similar questions considering I’m the last woman who’s a Senju and every time, I told them to stuff it. No matter what you decide, even if I’m not performing the operation, your medical records will stay private, you have my word. Not as a Senju to an Uchiha, but from one woman to another.”

Mikoto nodded and remembered the stacks of papers Danzō had stolen from the office of the Uchiha Clan Head. Even if she wanted to, that wasn’t a promise Tsunadae could keep. She pasted on a polite smile and bowed to the medical ninja. “Thank you very much Princess Tsunadae. I’ll let you get back to your work.” The Uchiha retreated as Tsunadae’s sympathetic expression followed her out of the tent, before the blonde shook herself and moved onto the next critical injury. Only 257 more to go this shift…

__________________________

_Shimura Danzō_ … Kushina drove six golden chains into the dirt and pulled them taught, wrenching a large chunk of earth, rock, and roots up to block an imaginary projectile. As her hands sketched out a paralysis seal and layered an explosive seal on top of it, Kushina’s mind kept working. He was playing politics, and she didn’t like it.

Sending her away to speak with Mikoto alone meant he was attempting to create a wedge, providing some information to one party alone to spur distance and doubt. Kushina knew herself and Mikoto well enough that her raven-haired lover would likely tell her everything, but Danzō’s mind games did not indicate Anbu tenure under his leadership would be easy or free of politics for her. The day Kushina had signed the form, consenting to her candidacy as Hokage, she knew it would involve more indirect work than she was used to. She could give a speech like the most eloquent Clan Heads, and she kept track of who her friends and enemies were, but Anbu membership… Service among the Anbu heavily weighted a candidate’s prospects and taking Danzō’s offer would put her one step above Fugaku and Minato. Even with the handicap of being a jinchuriki, successful Anbu service would prove once and for all she was capable of controlling the Nine-Tails in the harshest and most emotionally taxing environment the ninja world had to offer. It could give her the clearance necessary to finally learn what happened to Uzushio. The facts, not rumors overheard in taverns and guesses from Mist-nin encounters. The truth. She could finally, finally punish the Mist Village for destroying her home. Not with war, of course, they were still in the middle of this one. But increased taxes, reparitions talks, using her position as Kage to encourage any other Uzumaki to come out of hiding…she couldn’t be the last one right? The last daughter-queen of a bloodline that was every bit the equal of the Uchiha and the Senju? Didn’t she deserve a family?

Best of all, Danzō’s offer had been a joint one, for both of them. Mikoto and Kushina wouldn’t have to endure Anbu’s harsh environment alone, they would have each other. It was wildly out of place and likely against whatever few rules Anbu had, but Danzō was explicitly endorsing it. Endorsing them.

It was too good to be true and Kushina almost hated the little leap of joy her heart did when she thought of the outcome. Finally placing the red and white hat of the Fire Shadow upon her head, finally being acknowledged as one of the Leaf. Finally allowed to be herself, with no superiors to tell her off, or subordinates making insinuations. When she was Hokage, she would have made it. She would be safe and could keep others safe. Not just helping ninja on the front lines, but the peasants who had lost harvests, the merchants whose sales were down, the parents and children and orphans across the Leaf Village and the Land of Fire. It was the dream of the little orphaned Uzushio girl and it was _so close_.

Her hands flashed in the air as the golden chains dragged an invisible body close, pummeling it with body blows, doing damage to internal organs and systems. The nonexistent corpse was flung away and Kushina stood in the center of the cratered, seal-encrusted training ground and breathed out slowly, bringing herself down from the adrenaline rush. She knew being Hokage would involve plenty of paperwork and much less real fighting, once the war was done. That was what assistants and chunin specialists were for after all. She knew there would be still more politics, within the village and without, but she knew enough people in enough Clans, that it shouldn’t be too bad. It would be hard to argue with someone who saved you, your clan head, and your friends three times over, right? Kushina was certain there would be resistance to her orders, her new changes, but she was convinced she could manage it. And if or rather, when she couldn’t as Hokage and as an Uzumaki, she could just bulldoze through the opposition and tell them to go suck her sweaty-

A throat cleared behind her and she spun around, chains pointed forwards, hair thrashing in an invisible wind, eyes steely-blue and ready for anything. A grey-haired twerp in a mask stared at her cooly, acting wholly unimpressed by the display of power and the many pointy objects aimed at him, but Kushina saw through him. She was an Uzumaki, they were naturally empathetic, so she felt his mix of excitement, awe, and amusement. The boy crossed his arms and looked her in the face as she relaxed. “Minato-Sensei wanted to meet with you, so he sent me. He’s on Bench Twelve in the Mess Hall, then he was going to use this training ground to test us, so thanks for that.”

Kushina had the grace to look slightly guilty about the devastation she had imprinted on the formerly smooth and grassy area, then his words caught up with her. “Wait, Sensei?”

The kid shrugged. “Yeah, he said he’d be our jonin instructor, make sure we don’t kick the bucket five minutes int our first mission.” Well, that did sound like Minato, but… Kushina’s face twisted into something confused and vaguely regretful. “How come nobody asked me to be a jonin instructor?”

The grey-haired kid shrugged. “Do I look like a jonin to you?”

She was forced to admit he did not. “Fine. I’ll head over there, but I think Training Ground Six is still open on the roster.”

“I’ll just fix this myself.” His hands moved through the signs for the Earth Stabilization Technique and the ground began to roll and spread into a uniform flatness once more as dirt particles shifted in accordance with the ninja’s will. Kushina had already left, but something was tickling her brain as she ran. Grey hair, mask, bored voice…She’d seen him before somewhere. It was only when she reached the entrance of the Mess Hall that she remembered. He’d been the little pervert who’d caught her and Mikoto behind the supply crates and she’d been too busy scrambling for a shirt to kick his ass.

It was only through a supreme effort of will that Kushina refrained from groaning out loud.

If that brat really was Minato’s student, that would be a punishment she could never dish out. A real tragedy…

________________________________

Minato Namikaze was pretty sure he could handle this. He was an elite jonin, he’d performed outstanding feats in active combat across multiple fronts of the Third Great Ninja War, he could handle three children if this was what helped convince people he should be Hokage. Already, he knew they had the makings of something special. A young Uchiha who hadn’t developed his eyes, bursting with potential and cheer despite the circumstances. A civilian girl with the same inner fire he recognized in himself, to perform beyond expectations, to become someone more than just a civilian. She’d already started training with medical ninjutsu too, seeing how the shinobi force was always starving for medics. There, if she was smart and lucky, she could rise rapidly through the ranks. And finally, perhaps most importantly, the only son of Sakumo Hatake, already battle-hardened and with a reputation for being more than another genin gopher. His team would be the stepping-stone towards greatness the Leaf needed, just like the Sannin. He would be carrying on the traditions Jirayia had taught him, (he’d leave out the bits about women) who had learned from the Third Hokage in turn. He was going to inherit a glorious legacy and was determined to live up to it.

Assuming the two children in front of him would stop bickering about the usefulness of medical ninja compared to a combat-focused chunin.

“-what’s most important!”

“I don’t care how many Cloud ninja your uncle set on fire, if his squad had bled out and died, the mission would have been a failure anyway!”

“Well, what’s more important, that the mission get finished or for the medical ninja to be the last person in the squad alive to report back their failure?”

“I can’t believe you would even-“

On and on and on. The only reason they were ignored was because of the sheer volume of the dozens, if not hundreds of shinobi crowded onto narrow benches around them eating the same canned beans, rice, and questionable vegetables. Privacy and personal space were polite fictions here, if they pretended to exist at all. He let them exhaust each other, grey goggles pressing up against a glare framed by purple tattoos and brown hair. Rin Nohara didn’t have a clan yet, but she was determined to make one and had tattooed herself earlier in the year, just to prove her medical knowledge and pain tolerance were equally high. Meanwhile Obito Uchiha shouted his determination to be Hokage at the top of his lungs, while other members of his clan steadily gave him the cold shoulder. That reminded him of the woman he’d sent the already competent and reliable Kakashi to find, who should be here any second now.

Bright red hair bobbed among the crowd and he saw her reach their long table and scan down the line for his equally distinct blonde mop. He’d let it grow long on the Northern Front as a minor protection against the cold and never bothered to pare it down. So she saw him and shouldered her way through the rows of muscled ninja in Konoha green and blue and land in Kakashi’s vacated seat. The children mercifully fell silent and he could have kissed her for that. Then he reluctantly reminded the rest of his brain she was with someone else and would feed him his sandals if he tried that. So he nodded and flashed a quick grin at her instead. “Kushina, thanks for coming. Before we headed out, I wanted to introduce my new students and give you a heads-up about a few things.”

Kushina made a vague positive noise as he introduced Rin Nohara and Obito Uchiha, but the sound of the cheery, goggled child’s last name made her focus sharpen, first on him then on Minato. The boy smiled and extended a hand, unused to sudden razor-focused attention like that and as Kushina shook it her glare softened a little. He urged them to go find Kakashi at Training Ground Seven and recognizing a dismissal, the genin made themselves scarce. Now that Minato was this close to Kushina he could see something was slightly off. Ninety percent of her attention was on him, but it was usually one hundred. She was drumming her hand on the tabletop even as it reached out to snatch at Obito’s leftovers, uncaring of propriety when there was additional food to be had. “So, what’s the deal Minato?”

He pretended to be casual about it. “Oh, just some weird part of our Hokage evaluations, everybody involved has arbitrary tests the Hokage and the Elders put us through while they consider our candidacy. Considering there’s a war on, I would have thought that would have been a secondary thing, but what do you know,” he spread his hands the little space he could. “They make time for us.” His voice turned serious and he leaned in to provide the scraps of privacy distance could, but Kushina shook her head and sketched out a silence seal on the tabletop with a drop of blood and some soy sauce. That couldn’t be sanitary. Their surroundings muffled slightly and she wiped her hand off on the Akimichi behind her, just to be petty.

“So they’ve got you teaching kids, huh? What’re they having Orochimaru and Fugaku do? Have the former transfer a spine into the latter and talk about emotional health?”

Minato was surprised. That was more bitter than he had expected, so he decided to fish around. “What’re they having you do?”

Kushina held a finger to her lips. Proprietary secret, Namikaze. Very important, I’m supposed to eat all the Stone’s food supplies by next week.”

“Of course you get the easy assignment.”

Her hair twitched and he held up his hands in surrender. “I yield, I yield! Anyway, I just wanted to let you and Mikoto know they’re dissolving Special Operations starting tomorrow. Something about redistributing manpower more efficiently now we don’t have Stone ninja breathing down our necks.”

She huffed and finished off the last of Obito’s rice. “Well, that’s a bit of a relief. It’ll be nice to join in with other people once in a while, especially because I’ve had enough of Aburame bugs to last a few more months.”

Minato had to say it now or he never would, so he clenched his fist and leaped off the cliff.

“I’m sorry about our thing on the Northern Front,” he said bluntly.

Kushina arched one perfect eyebrow, the picture of disdain. She’d been getting lessons from Mikoto clearly. “I wasn’t aware we had a _thing_. In fact, as I recall, I made something of an effort to make sure there was no _thing_ between us. You’re a good fighter, a kind man, and I’m sure you’ll be a great sensei to those kids, but I thought I had made things clear enough. You’ve got a brain under all that hair Minato, that’s why I shared some of those seals with you, as a professional funinjutsu courtesy. It was never intended to be any kind of overture.”

“I thought you liked persistent men,” he protested, trying to prepare his case.

“I do like persistent men, and women. When they’re wanted. You were not. Not in that way. And this is my final word on the matter.”

She reached behind her head as if to scratch and itch and drew out a pointed golden chain which she pointed at his face. “Anything else I have to say will be communicated exclusively through this.”

She jangled the chain in front of him and Minato buried the disappointment and pain deep down as he smiled. “Okay then, the misunderstanding was totally my fault and I won’t make it again.”

“Willful misunderstanding, Minato. A man who can spot a tripwire at three hundred paces should be able to see the truth when it’s in front of him. You went to bat for us with that Akimichi jerk last week, so I thought you had realized how much you fucked up. Did you?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But you of all people should know how tough it is to give up on a dream.”

She looked genuinely surprised at that, and a little touched. Minato winced slightly when he realized how corny it sounded, but it had been unguarded and from the heart, so he couldn’t really take it back. Kushina looked down at the table.

“I wasn’t aware I meant that much to you.”

“I thought my persistence spoke for itself.”

“It did, loudly even. And I’m flattered. If I’d dated you before Mikoto and I-“

“Why did you never date me?” he interrupted. The question had burned in him for months and for a while there, he thought she’d been reaching out, testing their relationship, so he’d reciprocated. As it turned out, love did not bloom on the battlefield. At least in this case. Kushina was drumming her fingers again.

“I don’t know. You’re a handsome man, Minato, but… I guess at the time I was just playing the field.”

“Playing the field?” he echoed.

“Finding myself, my center, I guess. Did I like men more than women? Was it the other way around? Was it really what I wanted or was I just fooling myself? Then when word got around, you were one of the people who still treated me like a person, and not like a piece of meat or someone from the Red Lamp District.” A resigned sigh. “Sometimes I really hate that place.”

“You went there all the time when we were in the Leaf Village. I saw you drag Mikoto into some of those bars myself.” He added quietly, almost reluctantly, “You looked happy.”

“Because that’s where our bars were, nimrod. We don’t get those wood-paneled drinking rooms or outside stools like they do in the Green Lamp District where people can duck in for a drink and regulars go there openly. We’ve got the White Lilly and that’s it. Even I can only eat so many watercress sandwiches. The Red Lamps give people assumptions. Some of those assumptions I’ve played into, because people are idiots even when they’re accidentally correct, like you are. Were. Are trying to be.” She looked frustrated, whether with herself, him, their situation, or something else, he couldn’t tell. But Minato knew when to keep his mouth shut. They sat in silence for a while as the muffled voices of the shinobi around them chattered on, new diners circling in to replace those leaving on missions or to grab some sleep, but their little circle of silence insulated them from the world. Finally, Kushina looked up at him. “Hells, is any of this making sense? Getting through that skull of yours?”

Minato let out a rueful smile and rapped his knuckles on top of his headband for emphasis. “Yeah. Of course it takes us becoming rival candidates for Hokage to be honest with each other.” He held out the same hand towards her. “No matter what Sarutobi or the rest of those geezers decide, can we still be friends? For real this time?”

Kushina smiled back and shook his hand in a firm grip. “Friends for real. Got it.”

She smudged the silence seal with one finger which produced a pop as the air pressure around them equalized and noise flooded back in. Now it was Minato who stood to leave with a friendly wave. “I’ve gotta get going, there’s new students and a training ground to destroy.”

“Go, go, give the silver-haired kid a knuckle sandwich from me.”

Wondering what in the world that was about, Minato flickered out of sight in the general direction of one of his kunai hidden around the camp. The Flying Raijin had been an enormous pain, but it was so, so very useful.

________________________________

That evening, after reconvening in their tent and putting up two silence seals this time, Mikoto and Kushina told each other everything. The politics, the people, the interests, the history. The stolen genetic information, everything. They sat on top of their cot, which was really two cots pushed together, staring at Danzō’s wooden box. Kushina spoke again. “So you spoke with him more than me, and you’ve got the Sharingan. Why do you think Danzō’s helping us? He said he doesn’t get involved in village politics, but her runs the Leaf’s Anbu, often on sensitive missions. That’s inherently political. I mean look what happened with Sakumo.”

Mikoto was checking her compact again and had to force herself to put it away. “I think,” she said slowly, “he was honest when he said his interest getting us into Anbu and keeping us as active shinobi did coincide. I’m sure at some point if our interests and his diverge, he’ll throw us under the bus without a warning. He’s slimy, but never pretends to be anything else. Not like Orochimaru.” She shuddered performatively and Kushina nodded in sympathy. Owing that man a favor, even if he was loyal to the Leaf, seemed like something that could come back to bite them. Still, she had to break the other news she’d heard today. “So, I did some digging of my own today, since I don’t yet have Anbu to do it for me. Someday soon maybe. But I found out Danzō’s also the main person backing Orochimaru’s candidacy for Hokage, besides Orochimaru.”

“I was wondering who looked at him and said, ‘That’s a face that will inspire confidence and loyalty’.”

“Out of fear, maybe. But nothing beyond that. Even Fugaku has people loyal to him. Equals. Orochimaru just has followers.”

“Mmm.” Mikoto started playing with Kushina’s hair and the redhead handed her a brush so her girlfriend’s fiddling could at least be constructive. The soothing motion of the brush was calming for both of them. “Seeing as how I spoke with Princess Tsunadae today, you think the other Sannin will have a say in the selection? I mean, they’re only a little more powerful than us, and Sarutobi’s students. They could help tip the balance and Tsunadae did give us some good advice. Because if she’s not a big fan of the Uchiha, she might back you over Fugaku. And she knows the snake better than most, maybe she’ll see something we don’t for good or ill.”

Kushina waggled her hand back and forth. “Unlikely, I think. The toad sage has been MIA for a year now in the Land of Rain and from the lack of Sannin fury, we can assume he’s still alive. Tsunadae’s a Senju, sure, but she’s never been super interested in who has the Hat, so she’ll likely refuse to get involved.”

“And here I was hoping that conversation could have helped you.”

“You are helping me.” Kushina turned around and clasped Mikoto’s hands in hers. “You’re here, with me, and we’re not giving up. That helps so, so much, you have no idea.” They kissed, a short punctuation to her statement.

Mikoto looked at her like Kushina was the most precious thing in the world and it made her heart swell every time. “So, Anbu then? Together?” She put down the brush and opened the case, where the red and black masks waited patiently. They stared upwards at the women who were to wear them, and the living stared back down with equal curiosity. Kuchina grinned an eager, anticipatory, and slightly fanged smile. “Both of us together? Anbu won’t know what hit ‘em.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was interesting to write, especially because I tried to thread the complicated tangle of emotions surrounding motherhood and kids specifically. Even in our world, there's still discussion among the LGBTQ+ community about wanting genetic kids versus adopting, with societal stigma and hangups all over. Looking at you PM Shinzo Abe and your "Make Babies" initiatives. And the less said about the American system, the better. Let me know if I grossly misrepresent things, I know it's contentious stuff. But nobody's going to turn on a dime and say "I need babies."
> 
> I did quite a bit of research for this chapter on in vitro fertilization and it was only successfully performed in 1978, at astronomical odds. With all the genetic and medical advancements we have in 2020, it is much easier for couples to have children in a variety of ways. There's a huge substitute mother industry in India and China where women are paid to bear other people's children and do all the messy work of childbirth. In some cases, necessary, but it can get ethically dubious very fast. I'm sure that exists around the world, but the articles I read only covered those nations. 
> 
> The politics of this chapter were easier to write and I tried to make Kushina as politically astute as a Hokage candidate would need to be. I was reading back over this work and realized I hadn't included her POV much, and made her look like an idiot, when she isn't. So this is an attempt to remedy that. We also get Minato, who still can't quite entirely let go of Kushina. There is some willful self-delusion in there, but he's not trying to be a home wrecker on purpose. He and Kushina are also a little more ambitious than canon directly showed, which makes sense. Itty bitty Obito, Rin, and Kakashi too. Gave Rin a goal beyond "die for men to simp after".


	10. Back in Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life and times of an Anbu Agent. Several people make mistakes.

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”-James Baldwin

The next day, both of them realized Danzō hadn’t actually told them what to do if they accepted his offer, so they wandered back to that tent with the box. A sleepy chunin poked his head out of the tent flap and said he had no idea what they were talking about, but by lunchtime there was a sealed scroll taped to the bottom of Kushina’s bento box with appropriate instructions. To their surprise, they were sent back to the Hidden Leaf Village itself for the duration of their Anbu tenure. While the village was much further away from the front lines, it, and the Anbu HQ within, were far more secure than an assembly of tents and silence seals. The Anbu base was located beneath the Hokage Mountain and it took them a week to learn all the secret entrances and to register themselves in the Anbu system. Tattoos were needed, (Kushina got hers on the sole of her foot and it took several tries because it kept healing) acting as a biometric pass and as a verification of their allegiance. There was, unsurprisingly, paperwork in abundance, both for Anbu membership and for Kushina’s Hokage candidacy. References, a list of missions completed, list of known jutsu, elemental affinities, natural and learned, bloodline techniques and quirks, another battery of genetic bloodwork tests, introductory sessions with an Anbu psychologist who neither of them could quite remember, even when staring them in the face. Mikoto wondered about where those vials of Uchiha blood might end up, but reassured herself that according to Danzō, even the Uchiha didn’t have their fingers in Anbu at that level. Security was very tight, but paradoxically it made her feel more secure instead of watched. Their armor, swords, and ninja tools of all kinds were top-shelf quality, the kind of things Kushina might have only rarely spent money on herself. Danzō had input into the village budget, and even if it was skirting the edge of legality, the damiyo didn’t need to know. And the armor alone had saved Mikoto’s life twice already. So Kushina kept her mouth shut (with some effort) and followed orders.

Their missions were not as bad as Kushina had originally feared, but she assumed Danzō was easing them into it, for what that was worth. She hadn’t had to kill any children, but they’d kidnapped a man from the Land of Stone and held him in a dry, uncomfortable desert cave until his wife gave in and sent them an envelope containing whatever information the Leaf had needed. He hadn’t been ugly or especially evil-looking, he had no mistresses or companies committing industrial espionage or anything else Kushina could have used to ease her conscience. He was just a man, who was vulnerable, mostly naked, and afraid on the floor of a stone cave. When his wife coughed up the envelope their team leader (Tiger) had confirmed, they had given the man a bottle of water, some food rations, and pointed him towards the nearest town, which was a day and a half away. If he walked during the night and was careful with the water, he would make it. Kushina slipped him one of her own water bottles (unmarked, untraceable because she was kind not stupid) and endured Gekko’s disdain for the three weeks it took to get back to the Leaf Village.

Their apartment, and it was now their apartment, had been terribly dusty. Kushina was glad they hadn’t had a pet that inevitably would have gone feral or died locked inside, but her scattered houseplants were all yellowed and nearly gone. She found herself watering them anyway, in the hopes one of them would make it through. Mikoto had stolen away in the dead of night, during the Hour of the Wolf, to the Uchiha District and returned with two small boxes loaded down with books, childhood trinkets, and other meaningful items that could be moved by one person. Kushina particularly appreciated the brilliant blue of the lapis lazuli shard her lover had brought home and silently placed on Kushina’s desk. When the sun hit it in the morning, it light up the room, throwing blue light across the walls and ceiling. The furniture was another story entirely. Mikoto’s glowing red eyes had given her a photographic memory of everything in the house and only a precious few could fit into their apartment and be of any use. The rest, as much as it pained her childhood memories, would have to be sold. Still, the adult satisfaction of seeing her bank account balance rising and the satisfaction of closing the door solidly on one chapter of her life outweighed the lingering attachments she had to the house. She sent a polite letter to the Uchiha Clan head with a fair price proposal and said the Clan could donate the house to any of the young couples who returned to the village. (She was not going to come face-to-face with Sayaka Uchiha if she could avoid it.)

There were more young couples than either of them had thought, and not just in the Uchiha Clan. Some of the larger clans, and many of the smaller ones adopted similar proposals and though many were denied by the Hokage’s office out of military necessity, enough were accepted that the Anbu were starting to step in more and more to pick up the slack. The number of raids and intelligence-gathering missions increased. Most of the time she wore her Raven mask and steel-grey armor, but sometimes it was back to blue shirts and flak jackets and Leaf headbands, with only the hidden red shoulder tattoo to mark her allegiance. She didn’t mind and neither did Kushina, because it showed the Hot-Blooded Habanero and the Raven-Winged Uchiha were still out there, still fighting, even if they no longer saw their friends and comrades quite as often as before.

The newlyweds around the village were the subject of some scorn at first, but the Hokage and the few remaining Police Force put a stop to that very quick. Kushina found herself expecting to be resentful of them, not against the people themselves, but the danger they represented. She knew the pressure of an Uchiha marriage weighed on Mikoto sometimes, she’d felt her tossing and turning when the dark-haired woman would have normally fallen asleep. But Danzō, as uncompromising and as sketchy as he was, kept his promise and if there were any further attempts by the Uchiha clan, he intercepted them flawlessly. As a result, she couldn’t find it in herself to hate them. They were just ninja, like she was, some of them very young, and they didn’t want to die. Most of them seemed happy, like good matches, but above all relieved they were able to wake up and do something other than fight to their deaths. After getting nearly disemboweled by a Stone shinobi with a curved AND serrated kunai, Kushina couldn’t blame them.

To their surprise, despite the aforementioned death battles on a fairly regular basis, the other Anbu were slowly becoming her friends as well. Mikoto had a more reserved personality of course, but her dry wit and tendency to overpack medical supplies (No Kushi, that’s not nearly enough bandages for four of us) slowly won them over. Pheasant was a tall, blonde, and likely Yamanaka woman who added blindingly fast superfluous hand signs to a jutsu opponents thought was still taking form even as the genjutsu ensnared them. Beetle was usually covered entirely by a cloak and smoked packs of cigarettes near the Anbu entrance. Kushina found herself sitting near him just to feel the sunlight on her skin again, and they shared small details of their lives. Breakfast habits, wrestling with Anbu insurance forms (covered a lot but devastatingly complicated), meaningless local news unrelated to the fighting. When Mikoto and Kushina had needed help maneuvering a bookshelf up the stairwell of their apartment, more for the issue of maneuvering its vast bulk than anything strength-related, two familiar shinobi walked with them and retrieved it from the mostly empty house in the Uchiha District, uncaring of the watchful red eyes everywhere.

Kushina wasn’t sure but it felt like the Great Clans were all becoming insular. She’d attended a few meetings of the Hokage’s Council, or stood guard at Clan Head meetings, and there was more infighting, less cooperation. There was greater anger that one clan or another was not pulling their weight compared to the tepid praise cooperation earned. Yes, she understood the satisfaction of anger very well. It had been drip-fed into her throughout this war, encouraged at every turn by the fox lurking inside her soul, and she had let her anger run free, but had never unchained it entirely. Never given voice or fist or barbed chain to those buried feelings of rage, disappointment, and possessiveness. She still remembered Mito’s voice, ancient and weak and now so very far away. She remembered how love was always the key to truly sealing away the Nine-Tails, and so Kushina Uzumaki kept her own counsel. Restoring trust in the clan system that had failed her and so many others, trust in Konoha itself, which fed sons and daughters into a seemingly endless war. She added that to her mental list of reforms and then, one day, she saw something on a mission that made her add another to the very top of her list.

Fox stormed through the halls of the Anbu headquarters, hair fanning out behind her and silent rage almost heady enough to smell even through an Anbu mask. Ninja flattened themselves to the walls or followed behind her, hands close to weapons. Raven was in the infirmary, tending to the patient they had rushed back at Fox’s insistence, but she knew the other woman would back her up every inch of the way. To the hilt, if necessary. Danzō’s office emerged from among the plain featureless stone walls and Fox flung open the door with a bang and a swirl of flying papers. The bandaged man looked annoyed and grasped for several of the requisition forms he had been filling out moments before. “Fox, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Tell me you didn’t do it,” she growled, uncaring of the many, many weapons now pointed at her back. “Tell me you didn’t sign the order to send _genin children_ into battle for the Leaf Village!”

Danzō bent down to pick up one of the scattered sheaf and returned to his seated position with no sign of concern. “It is an unfortunate reality Fox, but the Council was in unanimous agreement. Efforts will be made to assign genin teams to missions with high projected survivability rates and we have every confidence the accelerated graduation schedule will compensate for any fatalities-“

“There shouldn’t be any fatalities at all! THEY! ARE! CHILDREN!” she roared. She knew the Fox was paying close attention, could feel the beginnings of the burn along her chakra coils as he assaulted the seal’s restrictive rods and bindings, but damn it she would power through it. She was Kushina friggin’ Uzumaki and this would not stand. Before her Danzō was looking at her without a trace of fear in his eyes and she wondered if he had some contingency plan even here, in his own office, just for her. It didn’t matter.

“Explain to me, in small words, why the Leaf Village was originally founded, sir. Why the Uchiha and the Senju put aside their hatreds to form the Hidden Village system? You were there, so you should have first-hand intelligence on the matter.” She said, mocking his briefing-style tone he so often adopted for every interaction. “Explain the Theoretical behind the Practical of sending barely trained children into a war zone. Are these latest shinobi somehow better than jonin and chunin with decades of experience and several feet of height on them? Are they cleverer? Or are they just more bodies to throw at a problem because we cannot admit to a stalemate?”

She was panting, breathing hard through the mask and her breath felt hot around her. The Fox was really pushing it now and she felt the pain double, then triple, but she remained standing. This was a moral threat, not a physical one. There was no need to draw on even an iota of the power she had stolen from him over years of war and careful trickery. Even if for once, the jailer and the jailed might agree on something. Danzō produced a piece of paper and held it out for her. Kushina snatched it out of his hand, tearing it slightly and read it in seconds. The latest casualty rates, followed by morale estimates. Taking a deep breath and feeling her hair lower behind her, she handed it back carefully. She was going to use this righteous fury, she was going to be the bigger woman about this, she was going to make him see.

“The latest report from the Western front. So our morale remains at middling levels and casualty rates are still within acceptable boundaries. Nothing there demonstrates the need for children in combat.”

“Here are the estimated numbers for the Iwagakure forces, followed by the actual report we stole yesterday.” The enemy’s casualty rates had doubled, while their moral had plummeted to a rock bottom of 32%. Almost below the bare minimum required to maintain an army that wouldn’t revolt. Danzō continued. “Despite the lack of any significant military accomplishments on a scale seen since March, the Iwagakure forces have maintained their pressure campaign on our own forces. Intelligence suggests the Tsuchikage believes the Leaf’s spirit is equally close to breaking. When we show him that even our children are willing to fight, that the Leaf is prepared to enter a state of total and absolute warfare to achieve victory, his forces will pull back while he re-evaluates.”

“And how will he learn that? When some twelve-year old or Tides forgive us, a ten-year old, believes his parent’s stories about how any Leaf-nin is worth a dozen enemy shinobi and gets killed trying something stupid and brave?”

“Like what you’re doing right now?” muttered someone behind her. Without turning her head, she gave the entire lot of them the finger anyway. But Danzō was nodding, that bastard actually seemed pleased!

“Yes, precisely. When confronted by a child, the enemy’s morale and their fighting spirit will waver, allowing the attached jonin to surprise them and destroy their will to fight completely. Alternatively, stories of one child succeeding against two or even twelve enemy shinobi will inspire our forces to fight harder. They will be furious that Iwagakure has proven themselves willing to kill children and will fight as if their own children were on the line. The example of one child will inspire shinobi to endure, to fight, to strive as hard as possible until the enemy finally breaks. Then, we can chase them out of the Land of Fire entirely, out of Grass, Rain, Tea, everywhere else they have no claim to land, and restore the rightful balance of power among the nations.” He paused, voice oozing satisfaction. “With Konoha at the top.”

Fox was at a loss for words as Mikoto’s words from that first meeting with Danzō came back to her. “You know the Hat will mean nothing to you if I die before you get it. Isn’t that true?” The same principal applied to the children, so she said so. Danzō remained impassive.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the Omelas Principle? The idea that if Utopia rested on the sacrifice of one single child, who would never know happiness or joy, the populace would accept that price and name it sweet.”

Fox tapped her mask. “Sounds a little like KMPD dash zero-zero-nine, sir. That was supposed to ensure peace, and the First Hokage’s plan didn’t work out that well did it?”

“No, it was designed to maintain the balance of power between villages, an important distinction. None of the villages that possess a Tailed Beast have been destroyed in the past seventy-five years, while yours…”

Fox’s mask seemed to literally spit fire down at Danzō’s desk as she set it alight, and strode out of the room, through the crowd of heavily armed Anbu agents who fell away like leaves before a maelstrom. She spared the effort for a parting shot. “I’ll take my next assignment when you’re done building villages out of the bones of dead kids.” An ancient and rarely used Uzushio hand gesture was sent back into the office and the outraged grunt from its occupant told her he’d understood its meaning perfectly.

_________________________________

Raven was not hovering. She was pacing, back and forth, back and forth, in front of the surgical room the doctors had taken the boy and the staff were too curious about having an Anbu in-house to leave her alone. Didn’t the Anbu have their own hospital anyway? Was she injured? Was the boy her son? Was he a captured Cloud ninja? Where did she get that purple nail polish?

Yes, No to all the rest, and Anbu-issue nail polish only, special issue.

The lights flickered as she spread wings outwards and flapped them once, lifting her not at all, but driving the busybodies and curious patients back. The mask’s shadows suggested someone would get their eye pecked out. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

As it turned out, they did.

Fox strolled up and put a hand on her shoulder, but Raven didn’t turn around. She’d felt her lover from the moment they had entered the building. If she’d been paying attention the way an Anbu should, she would have felt Fox a block and a half away, so towering was her rage and roiling chakra. Fox spoke first.

“How is he?”

“On three different drugs and already had tubes coming out of several orifices, but I think he’s got a shot. The others?”

“Beetle and Pheasant escorted the other kids in with Minato. I took out their pursuit. No stragglers, no word back to base. I think the only reason they let me go was because we’d already finished our own mission.”

A soft chuckle from the dark-haired woman as the shadowy wings dissipated and the lights of the hospital corridor returned to normal. “They couldn’t have stopped you if they tried and they knew it. Especially with Namikaze bleeding all over their snip of a medical ninja.”

“If you tried, they could have. You just agreed with me, so I had carte blanche.”

“I gave you carte blanche, and we’re going to pay for it for sure. How was the reception?”

Fox let out something that absolutely was not a whine but was certainly consciousness of guilt.

“I got in Danzō’s face about it, seeing as how he was the deciding Council vote. Unanimous decision my sweaty-“

“How bad?”

“I raised my voice. A bit.”

“How many people heard?”

“Most of HQ, but seriously? If they even let us back into the base, there’ll be a nice line drawn between those OK with dead kids and not in favor of dead kids.”

“That’s in doubt? What did you say?!” Raven spun around to grasp Fox’s shoulder and shook her a little. “What did you do?”

“I…might have set Danzō’s desk on fire. Accidentally. That’ll be my excuse anyway.”

Raven walked them both over to the chairs on the side of the hall and shoved Fox down into one before she collapsed into one herself and ran fingers through her short, sweaty hair. “Sage’s spit, Kushi, it’ll be a minor miracle if they don’t court-martial you. He’s given us so much latitude and at the first opportunity you blow up at him? Literally!” She flung her hands in the air. “He’s going to use that against your candidacy at every opportunity now, and he’s right to!”

Fox crossed her arms and Raven could see the angry pout she knew her lover was sporting even through the mask. “I think I can make a pretty good counter-argument that advocating for dead inspirational kids is a sign the village needs my kind of change. Hells, I’m putting that at the top of my list now. Kissing you in public goes down to number two.”

Raven let out a huff that was half amusement, half exasperation. “So an Uchiha kid bleeds all over you, cries a bit, and you move heaven and earth to keep him safe? If we ever get an Anbu mission again, I’m trying that just to watch you lose it.”

Fox shifted her mask downwards slightly and started massaging her temples. “Very funny Little Bird. Very funny.” The sudden drop in her tone and posture made it clear “funny” was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. Perhaps another word that began with F and ended in “ucked”. Raven’s mask remained fixed upon the door until Fox broke the silence, aware of the two staff attempting and failing to eavesdrop on them.

“If it’s the silent treatment, fine. I’ll apologize on Thursday. Big deep bow, put it in writing, the works.”

“Do it tomorrow and swallow your pride. If you’re going to be Hokage, you have to learn restraint. Don’t you think that was why they put us in Anbu, and sent Minato out with some kids? Orochimaru’s drafting peace terms, for the Sage’s sake! I don’t know what Fugaku’s up to but it’s probably equally as onerous if he hasn’t tapped out by now. This whole thing has been about showing who can master the qualities antithetical to their nature to become a balanced Hokage.”

“Antithetical?”

“Opposite, contrasting, directly opposed.”

“I’ve never pretended to be anyone other than who I am. Last session, the Council and the Clan Heads said my authenticity was a positive trait in a political and military leader, alongside my charisma.”

Raven let one hand rest on Fox’s forearm. “It’s true, and I love you for it, but today was stupid. At the risk of a horrible corvid pun, we’re both going to have to eat crow, and in vast quantities. Like, scrubbing the Anbu bathrooms with toothbrushes, quantities.”

Fox relented and took her hand in between her own. “We will, and I’ll make my peace with the outcomes, one way or another, as long as I know I tried everything today to keep this kid alive. And for the Hokage junk, it’s not like Minato covered himself in glory either. Hells, our presence saved their lives and one of them is going to write that in the mission report for sure. Which one do you think?”

“Probably the girl seeing as how when we got there Obito was passed out and drowning in his own blood, Namikaze was delirious from blood loss and a hallucinogenic gas, and the Hatake kid was stabbing the same corpse fifty-seven times before I put him under. She’s the only one on that team with both a self-preservation instinct and a lick of sense.”

Fox leaned on her shoulder as they waited. “Hell yeah, girl power, right?”  
“Why not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Danzō remains a bastard, in case anyone was wondering if he had a hidden heart of gold. Bronze maybe, or some other metal that's marginally useful, but is out of active use in warfare. He's also provoking Kushina with pointed phrases from Uzushio, so that's a point. 
> 
> So I ran the numbers again and estimates put the Third Great War at seven years long, but Fugaku took a four-year old Itachi to a battlefield because he is a Bad Father and a Trauma-stricken Idiot, so meaningful dates are more of a suggestion than an ironclad law at this point. Also in canon Minato and Kushina died in their early twenties, and Mikoto and Fugaku died somewhere in their thirties-ish. Maybe late 20's? Yeah, that's also up in the air now. Not a problem if I had let them be underage for their first time or even just before, but that just felt needlessly skeevy to me. Yes teenagers have sex, and it's mentioned in this fic, but ehhh. Can't really explain my feelings on writing underage beyond a vague sense of uncertainty and more questions than I feel comfortable with. So everybody got aged up.
> 
> I also like the idea that because the Hokage is nominally a unilateral military dictator, the vetting process is detailed and involved, with the candidacy equally outside of the public eye as much as it is in the headlines. (If at all) The idea of testing if candidates can attempt, succeed, or deal with situations designed to set them off is a good one, I think. And Kushina's good heart that the Hat needs is also the same thing that leads her to act too rashly, to feel too deeply. I still love her to pieces though and I hope it comes through. Also, being in the village now allows for Fun Times, which I am looking forward to writing!


End file.
